Sunday, January 30, 2011

Fandom

January 30, 2011, 8:30 p.m.

Super Bowl, Super Mystery
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)

We are sports fans. We love being sports fans, and at times, we live to be sports fans. As loyal fans we empower ourselves to break free of the realities of everyday life by joining a greater cause. We gain access to a community of others like us, a nation of people energetically united by something powerful. The only requirements for membership in this family are loyalty and a belief in the cause.

If we’re fans of the Kansas City Chiefs, we don’t care if our starting running back is originally from Kansas City, Florida, or California—he is a Chief, he is one of us, and he’s in the family. It’s irrelevant that as fans we don’t actually play in the game. We jealously covet our season tickets. We stay focused and disciplined as we, along with 80,000 of our closest friends, show off our spelling and counting skills after every touchdown. We proudly display framed Sports Illustrated covers, faded pennants, and other relics as evidence of memories that we already know will last forever. Like the players, we fans are also in the family, and we know the potential for that family is limitless.

Sports and fandom give us hope. They give us a sense of belonging. They teach us to believe in ourselves and our ability to contribute to something special. Once that opening pitch is tossed, or that ball is tipped, or that kick is returned, the outside world and all its worries and pressures quietly fade away—for we and the rest of our family are busy transcending greatness.


-- Jim Mosimann
A week from today 100 million Americans (give or take) will be watching the Super Bowl game. It's one of television's highest rated shows.

I will be a part of that audience. I have enjoyed sports of all kinds, whether participating, in the stands, or watching a television or laptop computer screen -- the skill of the athletes, the thrill of the last minutes of play that so often determine the outcome.

But I've always been a bit mystified by what I will call "extreme fandom" for the professional, commercial, TV performers (players) in the for-profit TV shows called, for example, "professional football." See Ken Belson, "Rapid Fans Put Dallas on Their Itinerary," New York Times, January 31, 2011.

A family friend, now deceased, was such a Denver Broncos fan that he would stand, watching their every game on television -- for the entire game. I guess it was a gesture of respect. There are fans who travel to all of "their team's" games, like the Deadheads who used to follow the Grateful Dead from concert to concert. Fans dress in their team's colors, like the "bumblebees" who dress in Iowa's black and gold for Hawkeyes' football games.

They are willing to follow directions on what "uniform" they should wear to the game (for the benefit of, among others, the television cameras). At Iowa's last Homecoming game, all the fans seemed to have followed the instructions on their tickets regarding whether they should dress all in black or in gold. It made for striking TV coverage.

At Penn State they are all sometimes told to wear white -- and obediently do so. Penn State seems to have a formula for whipping up the fans' enthusiasm before and during the games. Here is what they call their "Penn State Football Crowd Pump Up Video" from 2008:



What is it I find so mysterious about this?

I can understand how one would be a "fan" of their high school, or even college, teams. After all, at that stage of your life the school is a major part of your community, your circle of friends; and the players are people you at least see regularly off the field, and may even have as acquaintances or friends.

Even so, some might suggest we're even carrying high school, and junior high, sports to extremes, as the New York Times reports this morning about a little town not that far from what will be the Super Bowl stadium next Sunday.

"The $60 million football stadium at Allen [Texas; population 650 in the 1960s, 85,000 now] High School, where [Steve] Williams is the athletic director, was starting to take shape. . . . To the residents, who voted 63 percent in favor of a $119 million bond in May 2009, this project, which includes the stadium, an auditorium for fine arts and a service center for the district, is designed to scale. Their scale just happens to be larger than most. . . . Chris Tripucka [owner of the souvenir shop, Eagle Designs, says] 'I’ve been around sports all my life. You can’t explain it to people who don’t live here. You have to experience it.' . . . The new stadium . . . will hold 18,000 spectators in a sunken bowl designed to improve sightlines . . . [and] include a two-tier press box, an indoor golf practice area, a high-definition video scoreboard, a practice room for wrestling, and enough parking for every car in Dallas . . .. 'Look, football has always been a big deal here,' Williams said."
Greg Bishop, "A $60 Million Palace for Texas High School Football," New York Times, January 30, 2011, p. SP1.

A little over four years ago, Sports Illustrated's Frank Deford, who provides NPR's listeners a little sports insight every Wednesday morning, noticed this "big deal" seemed to be forcing its way into junior high schools as well.
"I've decided to rewrite my will. . . . [T]he bulk of my estate is going where it's really needed -- to . . . help renovate the weight room and build a 20,000-seat football stadium with a retractable roof for the disadvantaged little fourth and fifth grade student athletes at my alma mater. . . . [R]ather than correcting all the abuses of college athletics, we Americans are instead simply taking all that's wrong with college sports down to high school. . . . Just as colleges recruit high school players, now high schools scout middle schoolers. There are now newsletters which identify the best sixth grade prospects in the nation. . . . And given good old American know-how, I figure that by the time I'm pushing up daisies the same sins will have reached the elementary school level."
Frank Deford, "Sweetness And Light: College Sports Excesses Seep into High Schools," Morning Edition, NPR News, September 27, 2006.

I spent much of the 1950s in Texas, a state for which I still have a great deal of fascination and affection. So it didn't surprise me that Greg Bishop was able to pick up on the fact that Texas is a "state where only football supersedes faith and family." But I have to admit that it surprised even me when he quoted the Allen High "fine arts director" saying, “It’s controlled chaos. There’s an energy you can’t describe. When they say football is like religion in Texas, it’s true." Knowing a little something about "religion in Texas," as well, that's not comforting.

Maybe finding an analogy for fandom in religion is helpful. After all, Mosimann mentioned "transcending greatness." Does a part of the explanation for fandom have something to do with being a part of a crowd of like believers, what he calls "a sense of belonging"? Are Mosimann's "80,000 closest friends" in the stadium, or the 18,000 Allen High fans in its new stadium, attracted to joining fandom for reasons related to the reasons those 24,000 Texans had for joining Houston's megachurch, Second Baptist?
Second Baptist is the second-largest "megachurch" in the U.S., a modern cathedral complex the size of an airport terminal. Inside "E Gym," where the congregation's "small" Saturday evening service is being held, two basketball courts full of believers in jeans and flip-flops rock out, sing along or just watch as a huge contemporary band jams to the song "Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble?" [Photo credit: Jessica Kourkounis, AP.]

White and yellow stage lights hit the rising smoke before the performance cools down for the opening prayer. The sermon stops for applause as the audience watches an video projected overhead of a Christian-gone-wild beach retreat, where the church baptized nearly 700 teenagers.

Spread across five campuses, Second Baptist has about 24,000 people attending one or another of its programs each week. The church has fitness centers, bookstores, information desks, a café, a K-12 school and free automotive repair service for single mothers. The annual budget: $53 million.
Jesse Bogan, "America's Biggest Megachurches; Rock bands, jumbotron screens, buckets of tears and oodles of money. Meet the next wave of Christian worship," Forbes, June 26, 2009.

But it's not college -- or even junior high -- sports fans that I find so mysterious.

It's the fandom gone wild for the commercial pro teams.

I have a colleague who makes a practice of rooting for whichever team happens to be ahead at the time during the Super Bowl game, or other athletic contests. I am not quite that fickle. Green Bay has always fascinated me, primarily I suppose because of the community ownership of the team. ("The Packers are the only non-profit, community-owned franchise in American professional sports major leagues." Green Bay Packers, wikipedia.org.) Because Carroll Rosenbloom was a family friend, when he owned the Baltimore Colts, and I lived in Washington, I took a greater interest in that team.

But I've never become a rabid fan of any one professional team. Maybe it's because Iowa has none. If you live in Iowa and want to be a fan of a professional team, your only choices are at least a couple hundred miles away in another state.

Professional teams are not like school teams. College sports may be big business, but it's nothing like the multi-billion-dollar industry that is the TV show called "professional sports." When you're watching a pro football game you're watching 22 millionaires -- few, if any, of whom have any connection to your home town -- playing for two billionaires. (See this morning's AP column from Tim Dahlberg, "After This Super Bowl the Real Games Begin," Associated Press/Yahoo! Sports, January 29, 2011 ("The billionaires believe they gave the farm away five years ago when they caved in to an agreement with the millionaires in Paul Tagliabue's last big act as commissioner. They seem determined to get it back, no matter what the cost."). Moreover, they're playing in a multi-hundred-million-dollar stadium most likely built at taxpayer expense for the billionaire -- who then charges ticket prices that many of those taxpayers can't afford to pay.

To become emotionally involved, to the point of cheering yourself hoarse, over such a corporation, while dressed in its colors and logos, always seemed to me somewhat analogous to arguments regarding the comparative merits of Ford and Chevy pickup trucks, or Coke and Pepsi.

Teaching Sports Law this semester has (so far) been rewarding from a number of perspectives -- mostly having to do with the quality, and enthusiasm, of the students. One day I shared with them my near-lifelong perplexity regarding fandom for professional teams. It produced a lively discussion -- including the essay/poem of Jim Mosimann's with which I led today's blog.

It seems to explain about as much as can be explained about the phenomenon called fandom.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
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Monday, January 24, 2011

Glenn Beck: "Shoot Them in the Head"

January 24, 2011, 7:15 p.m.

Beck Says "Progressives" Are Radical, Revolutionary Communists Who May Shoot You
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)

[And see the related, "Guns Do Kill -- 30,000 a Year; Just Americans Toasting Toast," January 10, 2011; "Second Amendment, Second Thoughts; Presenting, and Responding to, a Blog Entry's Critics," January 17, 2011.]

Today [Jan. 24] Jared L. Loughner found himself in court for his January 8 attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, an attack that took the lives of six others and left her with severe brain injury. Marc Lacey, "Suspect Pleads Not Guilty in Tucson Shooting," New York Times, January 25, 2011.

America continues its struggle to find an explanation for such an act.

Meanwhile, Members of Congress struggle to find a "date" for the President's "State of the Union" address tomorrow night [Jan. 25], sitting with someone of the opposite party in their effort to find a symbolic way of distancing themselves from the two parties' hostile political bickering that some believe may have contributed to the fact Ms. Giffords will not be among them that evening.

The concern lingers that some talk shows' vitriol, thrown in the face of the President and the Democratic Party, day after day, hour after hour, may have played a role in the actions of Loughner and others.

It needs to be emphasized that there is not, as yet, any evidence of which I am aware that Loughner ever listened to or watched Glenn Beck. And clearly Loughner had a lot more going on in his head than broadcasting's bile -- enough so that his "insanity" defense seems plausible and may work.

But for those who are not Glenn Beck followers, a little taste of what Beck said on his June 9, 2010, show may be useful in getting a little more specific sense of the verbal environment in which Loughner -- and the rest of us, sane and insane, armed and unarmed -- now live.

With credit to Media Matters for America and Reader Supported News, here is Glenn Beck in his own words (followed by a video excerpt from the show):

# # #
In every single walk of life -- you want to know why TV doesn't reflect you? You want to know why Washington doesn't reflect you? Because they don't understand, from the radical revolutionaries . . . to the Tea Party movements.

Just because you in Washington and you who are so out of touch with life, in the media, just because you don't believe in anything doesn't mean nobody else does. We do. You know why you're confused by this show? It's because I believe in something. You don't.

Tea parties believe in small government. We believe in returning to the principles of our Founding Fathers. We respect them. We revere them. . . .

I will stand against you and so will millions of others. We believe in something. You in the media and most in Washington don't. The radicals that you and Washington have co-opted and brought in wearing sheep's clothing . . ..

You've been using them? They believe in communism. They believe and have called for a revolution. You're going to have to shoot them in the head. But warning, they may shoot you.

They are dangerous because they believe. Karl Marx is their George Washington. You will never change their mind. And if they feel you have lied to them -- they're revolutionaries! Nancy Pelosi, those are the people you should be worried about.
Here's the video.



Can't stand to watch all of it? Start at 5:20 into the piece; "You're going to have to shoot them in the head," comes at about 5:30. But the buildup regarding why you ought to shoot them in the head comes earlier.

Prefer to read it? This video excerpt and a transcript of it are available here. A transcript of Beck's entire June 9, 2010, show is also available.

In case you're wondering, apparently this meets the FCC's interpretation of the Congressional mandate that broadcasters are to operate "in the public interest, convenience and necessity."

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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
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Monday, January 17, 2011

Second Amendment, Second Thoughts

January 17, 2011, 9:30 p.m.

Presenting, and Responding to, a Blog Entry's Critics
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)

A week ago I wrote about the carnage in Tucson, Arizona, and provided statistics about the number of gun deaths in America each year. "Guns Do Kill -- 30,000 Americans a Year; Just Americans Toasting Toast," January 10, 2011 ("Even in the lawless, wild west of old, Iowans had the sense to forbid six-shooters in bars and taverns. Iowa's legislators, yearning for the past, missed that nuance, and have provided that even those who can't walk and chew gum at the same time can legally drink and carry a gun at the same time.").

It's a subject I have written about before:
Related: Nicholas Johnson, "Branstad and Public Transparency," Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 5, 2011, p. A7, embedded in "Governor Branstad's 'Transparency,'" January 5, 2011 (urging more media stories that "associate those appropriations [of taxpayers' money to for-profit corporations] with the legislators who voted for them, and how much those legislators received in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses from the recipient of the appropriation.").

Nicholas Johnson, "Police Accidental Shootings -- Of Themselves; Additional Risks from Armed (Campus and Other) Police: Accidental Self-Inflicted Wounds," May 9, 2008 ("It was pointed out that those who keep handguns in their homes are 16 times more likely to have those guns used on family and friends than on criminal intruders (e.g., as a result of suicides, accidents, mis-identification, or the gun being stolen and used by the intruder). Accidental shootings of unarmed, innocent civilians by police officers sometimes occur -- including in Iowa City. It was noted that police are sometimes shot with their own guns as a result of losing them to an attacker in a scuffle. What was not discussed was the danger to the police themselves from . . . themselves. We were reassured that our police would be well trained. And I assume they are. But it turns out that isn't always enough. Indeed, some of the accidental, self-inflicted wounds (and death) occur during that very training.").

Nicholas Johnson, "A Public Health Response to Handgun Injuries: Prescription -- Communication and Education," American Journal of Preventive Medicine (May/June 1993) ("So long as we are unwilling to adopt effective, fail-safe solutions--actually removing these instruments of carnage from our midst--the price exacted for this "freedom" will continue to be thousands of lives of children and adults.").
(And see this morning's [Jan. 18] New York Times: "The contention . . . is that the good guys can shoot back whenever the bad guys show up to do harm. An important study published in 2009 by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine estimated that people in possession of a gun at the time of an assault were 4.5 times more likely to be shot during the assault than someone in a comparable situation without a gun. . . . Monday was a national holiday celebrating the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. While the gun crazies are telling us that ever more Americans need to be walking around armed, we should keep in mind that more than a million people have died from gun violence — in murders, accidents and suicides — since Dr. King was shot to death in 1968. We need fewer . . .. That means stricter licensing and registration, more vigorous background checks and a ban on assault weapons. Start with that. Don’t tell me it’s too hard to achieve. Just get started." Bob Herbert, "How Many Deaths Are Enough?" New York Times, January 18, 2011, p. A25.)

The January 10 Giffords blog entry produced a significant number of hits -- and criticism.

And so, in an effort to provide the remedies of the First Amendment to this discussion about the Second Amendment, I'm going to reproduce some of it here.

Some were comments appended to the blog entry. One of the most impressive rational responses, I thought, came in the form of an email I'm reproducing at the bottom of this blog entry. First, the comments:
Jeff Morelock said...

You forgot some other info...

Tobacco 435,000
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity 365,000
Alcohol 85,000
Microbial Agents 75,000
Toxic Agents 55,000
Motor Vehicle Crashes 26,347
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs 32,000
Suicide 30,622
Incidents Involving Firearms 29,000
Homicide 20,308
Sexual Behaviors 20,000
All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect 17,000
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin 7,600
Marijuana 0

So I guess cars, alcohol, Tobacco, sex, getting fat and a bunch of other stuff kills people too
1/10/2011 08:49:00 AM
He's got a point. It's a risk perception, risk assessment, point -- if what you're concerned about is death or serious injury. It's like being afraid to fly, but willing to smoke cigarettes and travel in automobiles -- both of which pose much greater risk of death than airplanes. My only reactions are two: (1) most of the deaths from "suicide," "incidents involving firearms," and "homicide" -- which he lists -- do involve deaths from guns. (2) Aside from them, the only other product on the list that, when used for the purpose for which intended, will cause death, is tobacco. Eliminating handguns (an impossibility, as the email writer explains) would at least eliminate deaths involving handguns -- a device manufactured for the purpose of creating violent trauma, whether to a fellow human, animal, or paper target. Automobiles, prescription drugs, and sex are seldom deliberately used to produce death, and at least have alternative purposes and uses.

Vinney B. said (in part),
Gun control in this country would only cause more problems than it would solve. Guns sold on the black market would create more crime and a deadly element worse than what we have now. Similar to our drug problem. Imagine the amount of our hard earned taxpayers money we would have to spend to fight it. It would be a losing battle. Similar to our drug problem. Criminals would still have guns knowing that most Americans may not.
1/10/2011 04:49:00 PM
He also has a point -- one expanded on by the email writer. But handgun injuries and deaths can be reduced, even if they cannot be eliminated -- any more than guns can be eliminated. Even the most avid "anti-gun control" advocates support the idea of education in gun safety and operation, and keeping guns out of the hands of psychopathic killers. There are more handgun deaths from suicide than homicide. There are suicide prevention programs that could help reduce those deaths and might be acceptable to gun owners. And most of those who want to regulate "guns" in some way or other make a distinction between the handguns that can be concealed and the rifles used for hunting -- although, as no less a person than the former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney demonstrated, they can also cause human injury (and death).

Finally, among those commenting is . . .
Anonymous said...

Pathetic. What happened to people taking responsibility for their own actions (something that you and other liberals do not believe in). Yes, believe it or not it is people who kill, not guns. You pose as an academic individual, but you seem to forget that murder predates firearms. Do you honestly believe that banning firearms will decrease violence? People who want to kill will always find a way. How about placing the blame where it needs to be placed: on the man who committed the crime.
1/16/2011 03:30:00 AM
My impression -- with no more data to support it than Anonymous offers -- is that almost everyone in my acquaintance I can think of (including "liberals," once there is a definition that enables one to identify who they are) believe that "people [should take] responsibility for their own actions" and support "placing the blame . . . on the man who committed the crime." (a) I don't believe that "banning firearms will decrease violence," but I do believe that, could it be done (which it can't) it would not only decrease handgun violence, it would eliminate it. (b) Even if "violence" cannot be reduced, violent fist fights, or knife attacks, are (again I'm guessing, without data) probably far less likely to cause death when they do occur, than the expression of violence with firearms.

And now for the thougtful email:
In almost all cases I agree with the liberal/progressive position on issues.

Gay marriage, living wage, single-payer national health care.

One of the few areas where I differ is gun control.

Of course "gun control" means different things to different people. Some NRA members (which I am not) would say that gun control means hitting the target. Others would say it means a policy similar to those in Canada, Japan, and many European countries where it is extremely difficult for a civilian to own any firearm, let alone a handgun.

A couple points:

1) As with most 'hot button' issues, most people have made up their minds on this and have dug in their heels, so there is no point in trying to "convert" anyone. That is certainly not my intent.

2) If the democrats want to win elections they will have to compromise on this issue. I really don't care one way or the other, just sayin'.

3) As mentioned above, there is a wide range of "gun control." I think requiring background checks, "cooling off periods," and gun safety courses is reasonable. Possibly even requiring that each gun be test fired, to allow law enforcement to have a record of the unique striations that each gun creates on the bullets that are fired from it. Beyond that, I think that the Second Amendment gives American citizens the right to own any gun that the police routinely use (i.e., not surface to air missiles or hand grenades). After all, what makes cops different from other humans? Only training. Gun owners could be required to have the same training.

4) It may sound trite, but it seems true that "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws would have guns." Very similar to our failed "war on drugs."

5) Personally, I think it's all but pointless to carry a gun for protection. Typically, a would-be mugger/rapist is going to point a gun at their victim and that person will not be able to draw their weapon without getting shot. However, I would not try to prevent people from carrying a gun if they want (again, assuming they go through a background check, gun safety course, etc).

6) It's too late for gun control if that means eliminating all guns. For better or worse, guns are a part of our society and have been from the very beginning. There are something like 200 million privately owned guns. Even if we could magically eliminate all new guns, it would be next to impossible to confiscate more that a small percentage of the guns already in private hands -- and then there's that pesky Second Amendment.

7) Beyond the number of guns a person can carry it doesn't matter how many guns a person owns. Why? Because they can only shoot one at a time -- the rest will be left in their basement or gun safe. We often hear that some criminal owns 50, 75, or 100-plus guns. As if that's supposed to be extra scary or something. It may indicate that the person was or is obsessed with guns. But it doesn't make them any more potentially dangerous that the guy who owns a couple semi-automatic handguns.

8) I have owned one gun since I was 14 years old. It it is a .22 caliber rifle. It is considered tame by most standards because of the small caliber and the fact that it is a long gun. It is the type of gun that would be the last to be outlawed even by the the most frothing at the mouth anti-gun fanatics. In actuality though, it could be very lethal in the hands of a lunatic. It holds 19 rounds and will fire them as fast as the trigger can be pulled. I have a high power scope on it which makes it extremely accurate from a long distance. I'm not a particularly good shot, yet I can hit push pins stuck in a tree at 150 feet. I suppose my point is that any gun, even a .22, can be used to kill people. John Hinkley used a .22 in his attempt to assassinate president Reagan.

9) People often refer to "assault weapons" and the repealed assault weapons ban. In actuality, most assault weapons are just "gussied up" hunting rifles. They just look scarier than a deer rifle. As a practical matter, banning them has very little effect. What is more important is the ammo. I remember seeing a demonstration on TV years ago of different types of bullets being shot from a common hunting rifle at watermelons. Some (the ones with a steel jacket) went right through the melons without much damage, others just blew them apart.

10) I rarely shoot my .22 and when I do it is just for fun -- target shooting. While the primary purpose of most guns is to hunt or for personal protection, target and skeet shooting is a legitimate (and fun) sport.

11) I'll end with one for the gun control folks. There are way too many people (mostly males) who think that if they just had a gun they would be able to protect themselves and their family in any situation. That's often not the case. In fact, the opposite may be true. If the criminal sees a gun they may start shooting when they otherwise wouldn't. Or, the criminal may get the person's gun. When under stress must people will not exactly have a steady hand like Clint Eastwood -- they will be shaking and trembling and not able to hit anything more than a few feet away. In the situations similar to that in Arizona this past Saturday [January 8, 2011], it will often be very difficult to shoot the criminal without hitting someone else. Also, lets suppose one or more people do start shooting at the criminal and a gunfight ensues. Then the cops show up and they have no idea who the good guys are. Or, other armed citizens join in and mistakenly shoot one of the good guys.

That said, there are definitely scenarios where an armed citizen could save lives -- the Long Island RR massacre comes to mind -- a crazy guy walking through a train randomly shooting people. But those situations are rare.

Bottom line, things rarely go down the way they do in the movies.
-- Sherman Johnson

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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
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Monday, January 10, 2011

Guns Do Kill -- 30,000 Americans a Year

January 10, 2011, 7:00 a.m.

Just Americans Toasting Toast
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)

America's flags are at half-staff. The country mourns the victims of six more handgun deaths. Those among them receiving the most media attention are the very popular Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, federal judge John M. Roll, and a nine-year-old girl, Christina Green, who played on the boys' baseball team, had just been elected to her student council, and came out to meet her member of Congress for the first time. E.g., Marc Lacey, "Federal Charges Cite Assassination Plan," New York Times, January 10, 2011, p. A1.

Meanwhile, the munitions makers, gun manufacturers, handgun retail outlets and shows, and their very generous campaign contributor and powerful lobbying arm, the National Rifle Association, like to disassociate themselves from America's handgun homicides.

One of their favorite lines is, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." To which one of the popular rejoinders of sanity has been, "Yeah, and toasters don't toast toast, people toast toast."

They are hoping that the fallout from Saturday's events will soon blow over and handgun sales will not only return to normal, but may actually increase.

Sadly, although the memories of Saturday will gradually fade, the nation's deaths from handguns will not. Over 30,000 Americans will die from guns. Of the 18,000 homicide deaths, 68% will involve guns. Few if any Japanese will die from gunshot wounds; their rates of gun deaths are a minuscule fraction of ours.

According to the CDC's latest statistics, of 18,361 homicides 12,632 were death by handgun. "FastStats: Homicide," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of course, homicide is not the only cause of firearm deaths. The total death toll is closer to 31,000.
Firearm—In 2006, 30,896 persons died from firearm injuries in the United States (Tables 18–20), accounting for 17.3 percent of all injury deaths that year. Firearm suicide and homicide, the two major component causes, accounted for 54.6 and 41.4 percent, respectively, of all firearm injury deaths in 2006. In 2006, the age-adjusted death rate for firearm suicide decreased significantly from 2005 by 3.5 percent, from 5.7 deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population to 5.5. However, the age-adjusted rate for all firearm injuries was the same in 2006 as in 2005—10.2 deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population (Tables 18–20).
CDC, National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 57, No. 14, April 17, 2009, p. 11.

And for every firearm death there are twice as many firearm injuries.
Firearm injury in the United States has averaged 32,300 deaths annually between 1980 and 2006 (See Figure 1).2,3 It is the second leading cause of death from injury after motor vehicle crashes.4 An estimated two nonfatal injuries occur for every firearm death.5,6 The 2006 age adjusted death rate from firearm injury is 10.2/100,000 with an estimated nonfatal injury rate of 23.6.7 Firearms are involved in 68% of homicides, 52% of suicides, 43% of robberies, and 21% of aggravated assaults.8,7 Deaths peaked in 1993 at 40,000 in the early 1990s and fell below 30,000 in 1999. Yet even at these lower levels, firearm injury represents a significant public health impact, accounting for 6.6% of premature death in this country (Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) prior to age 65).9 The fatality rate of firearm violence is more than twice the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ “Healthy People” goal for the year 2010.
Firearm & Injury Center at Penn, Firearm Injury in the U.S., Final Resource Book Updated 2009.

And so how has the Iowa Legislature responded to this carnage? Why by giving the NRA what it wants in exchange for its campaign contributions and members' votes -- an increase in gun sales as a result of a new law creating an ability for virtually all Iowans to carry concealed handguns, notwithstanding the judgment of their local sheriff that it's dangerous to give them a permit to carry. Tom Alex, "Iowans flock to sheriffs to apply for gun permits," Des Moines Register, January 5, 2011 ("Several Iowa sheriffs' offices reported receiving 10 to 20 times as many weapons permit applications on Monday as they do most days. Monday was the first day government offices were open since Saturday, when a law took effect that requires sheriffs under most circumstances to issue permits to carry concealed weapons. Sheriffs previously had greater discretion to deny or restrict such permits.").

Even in the lawless, wild west of old, Iowans had the sense to forbid six-shooters in bars and taverns. Iowa's legislators, yearning for the past, missed that nuance, and have provided that even those who can't walk and chew gum at the same time can legally drink and carry a gun at the same time.

Of course, it doesn't help when politicians say "don't retreat, reload," or put gun sights over opponents congressional districts (as Sarah Palin did with Congresswoman Giffords' district), or talk show hosts speak of "Second Amendment solutions," or say that when ballots don't work there are always bullets. If America's largest corporations think what they say in their multi-billion-dollar advertising on radio and TV is powerful enough to manipulate human behavior, it's hard to believe that illusions to assassination are totally harmless. See, e.g., Paul Krugman, "Climate of Hate," New York Times, January 10, 2011, p. A21; Froma Harrop, "Despite gunman's mental state, it was still a political attack," Dallas Morning News, January 11, 2011.

Harrop writes,
House Speaker John Boehner['s] . . . contention that this was "an attack on all who serve" wasn't quite right. Jared Lee Loughner['s] . . . attack was not against "all who serve." It was on a Democrat who had been vilified by a gun-waving right wing that Boehner's party tolerates and feeds with self-pitying visions of oppression. Democrats have no Palin-like figure putting political opponents in the cross hairs of gun sights . . .. There is no Democratic version of Giffords' recent Republican opponent . . . "Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." . . . Jeff McQueen, a tea party "leader" . . . told NPR: "We have a choice of four boxes if we want to make political change in this country. We can go to the soap box, we can go to the ballot box, or we can go to the jury box, and hopefully, we won't have to go to the bullet box." . . . Tom Ashbrook responded: "Bullet box! Are you talking about armed revolution?" McQueen answered . . ., "Have you seen ammunition sales in the last 12 months?" . . . [T]he Republican senatorial candidate in Nevada, Sharron Angle . . . added, "I hope we're not getting to Second Amendment remedies."
But however much debate there may be regarding the impact of speech, there should be very little debate regarding the impact of guns. The numbers are overwhelming.

Of course the real problem is all the frustration building up in those Americans who are still convinced they don't need a toaster to toast toast.

Related: Nicholas Johnson, "Branstad and Public Transparency," Iowa City Press-Citizen, January 5, 2011, p. A7, embedded in "Governor Branstad's 'Transparency,'" January 5, 2011 (urging more media stories that "associate those appropriations [of taxpayers' money to for-profit corporations] with the legislators who voted for them, and how much those legislators received in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses from the recipient of the appropriation.").

Nicholas Johnson, "Police Accidental Shootings -- Of Themselves; Additional Risks from Armed (Campus and Other) Police: Accidental Self-Inflicted Wounds," May 9, 2008.

Nicholas Johnson, "A Public Health Response to Handgun Injuries: Prescription -- Communication and Education," American Journal of Preventive Medicine (May/June 1993) ("So long as we are unwilling to adopt effective, fail-safe solutions--actually removing these instruments of carnage from our midst--the price exacted for this "freedom" will continue to be thousands of lives of children and adults.").
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
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Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Governor Branstad's 'Transparency'

January 5, 2011, 7:00 a.m.

Making "Transparency" in Government Meaningful
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)

The Press-Citizen has requested and run a series of 500-word op ed columns on "Issues to Watch: State Government." Here's mine from this morning's paper on Governor Terry Branstad's promises of "transparency."

Branstad and Public Transparency
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
January 5, 2011, p. A7

Governor-elect Terry Branstad thinks transparency in government is a good idea.

As a general proposition, most agree. Indeed, to borrow from the bumper sticker: "It's not just a good idea; it's the law."

The difficulties come, not from the generalization, but from the specific applications and exceptions. Moreover, many public officials are unaware of their obligations.

It's called the Freedom of "Information" Act. However, as communications scholars remind us, there are dramatic differences between data, information, knowledge and wisdom. Without raw data nothing more is possible. Wisdom may be too much to hope for, let alone legislate. But it's knowledge that we need.

Few citizens rummage through the yellowing paper records in all of Iowa's 99 county courthouses. We depend on the media to tell us what our public officials are up to -- from Congress in Washington, to agencies in Des Moines, to the local school board.

Too often, public records, even with the media's reporting, provide us little more than data.

Do Iowans really want government transparency, a "government in the sunshine"? If so, we need to follow the advice "Deep Throat" gave Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post's Watergate break-in reporters: "Follow the money."

Much of what governments do is transfer taxpayers' money to the bottom line of for-profit corporations. Indeed, my research indicates the payback on large campaign contributions can run 1,000-to-one, or more. In Washington that means, "Give a million, get a billion." What's the ratio in Des Moines?

Paybacks can take the form of government contracts, price supports, direct subsidies and earmarks, and fraudulently named "jobs" and "economic development" programs. One of the most invisible and invidious forms of payback are "tax breaks."

There are serious issues of political ideology, public policy and finance when officials hand over taxes to for-profit corporations. One would hope those who think "socialism" is a swear word, and insist a deregulated marketplace solves all social ills, would oppose such giveaways. One would hope in vain.

So let's put those issues aside, recognize the corruption will continue, and address what improvements might help.

• First, recognize that $100,000 not paid in taxes has the same private benefit and public cost as a $100,000 corporate subsidy.

• Second, without cutting a single dollar from the taxpayers' largess put all the money on the table. Start with the worst problem: the virtually invisible and untraceable tax breaks.

• Third, identify those that exist, however deeply buried in the Iowa tax code, and repeal them.

• Fourth, make the money available, to the same recipient in the same amount, but as an identifiable appropriation for a named corporation or individual.

• Fifth, require reports, and encourage media presentation of them, that associate those appropriations with the legislators who voted for them, and how much those legislators received in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses from the recipient of the appropriation.

That's how you turn data and information into knowledge.

It remains to be seen if that's what Branstad means by "transparency."

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Nicholas Johnson, a former FCC commissioner, teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law and maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org and FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.

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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
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