The Rocky Road to Equality

When professional basketball player Jason Collins announced recently that he is gay, it seemed the whole world took notice.

And with some justification. He is, after all, the first active athlete from one of the four major North American professional sports to publicly and proudly do so.

Collins' decision drew praise from President and Mrs. Obama, former President Bill Clinton, NBA Commissioner David Stern, Lakers star Kobe Bryant and numerous other athletes from basketball, football, hockey and baseball.

It was more celebratory than confessional, seen by some as a game changer in professional sports which has long been considered a bastion of testosterone-fueled homophobia.

We may not be living in the Age of Aquarius but are we entering the Age of Acceptance? Will professional sports lead us on the path to greater understanding?

Maybe. But right now, significant roadblocks remain on that path.

Consider: While everyone was focused on Collins, there were a couple of other notable sports stories taking place.

Punter Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings and linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo of the Baltimore Ravens were released from their professional football teams.

Both had enjoyed long and successful careers, And both were outspoken advocates for gay rights, specifically marriage equality.

Both filed amicus briefs when the Supreme Court took up the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, which challenges the California law against gay marriage as defined in Proposition 8.

"When we advance the idea that some people should be treated differently because of who they are," they wrote, "demeaned in public as lesser beings, not worthy of the same rights and benefits as others despite their actions as good citizens and neighbors, then we deny them equal protection under the laws. America has walked this path before, and courageous people and the Court brought us to the right result. We urge the Court to repeat those actions here. "

Strong words spoken by strong men which carried additional weight because neither are gay. And notable, too, because it's not the kind of talk you generally hear coming from a football locker room.

But as refreshing and insightful as it may be, you can bet it didn't represent the current thinking in the NFL.

Let's face it, the league is hardly a bastion of forward thinking. Most of the billionaire owners don't tolerate anyone to the left of Rush Limbaugh and make generous contributions to conservative causes. Marriage equality ain't one of them.

After all, this is a league that asked a college player at a scouting combine this year if he liked girls.

This is a league that heard one of its players say prior to this year's Super Bowl, " " Ain't got no gay people on the team. They gotta get up outta here if they do. Can't be with that sweet stuff. "

This is a league that embraces equality but has yet to condemn intolerance.

But most of all, this is a league that hates controversy. And the best way to deal with boat rockers is to sink the boat.

So goodbye to Brendon. Ciao, Chris. And while were at it, so long to Tim Tebow, an evangelical Christian quarterback who won't be marching in any gay pride parades any time soon but whose religious beliefs have become an issue. Or a "distraction" as coaches like to say.

We'll never know for sure if the dumping of a couple of outspoken jocks was a result of their views or if they had simply outlived their usefulness as football players.

But it is a more than suspicious turn of events. And it sent a clear message: get arrested, fail a drug test but keep your beliefs, whatever they may be, to yourself.

What an irony it is that the NFL whose rosters are nearly 60 percent minority, an organization that historically has advanced the cause of racial equality, should now lose its voice.

Maybe the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball would be wise to follow the lead of the National Hockey League, which announced its support of gay rights and its intent to fight homophobia.

That stance led to this scene, as reported in the Canadian media: At a hockey game between a pair of bitter rivals, the Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs, two gay women stood on the ice before the game. Christina, a Senators fan, asked Alicia, a Maple Leafs fan, to marry her in front of a packed arena in Ottawa. The Ottawa Senators mascot then held up a sign that said, "She said yes. "

The place erupted in cheers.

On the Bottom LookingUp

Three guys get killed in a boat accident and they go before St. Peter. The first man says he was a surgeon. "How much did you make a year?" Peter asks. The man replies, "I made $375,000." "Enter," says Peter, who now turns to the second man with the same question. "I made $153,000 - I was an architect." "Interesting," says Peter, "enter." Now he turns to the last man. "How much did you make per year?" The man responds, "I made $16,500." Peter turns to him and says, "$16,500, eh? What paper did you work for?" - A fable based on fact


My first job in journalism paid $45 a week. I was a wire room attendant at a San Francisco newspaper and it was my job to keep a dozen clattering teletype machines running smoothly.

That entailed changing the paper rolls on the fly, clipping myriad stories and distributing them to the correct desk and listening to the tell-tale bells that would indicate a news bulletin. And, oh yeah, the hours were to 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

I lived in a dump with a couple of other guys and we scrimped and saved to make sure we had enough beer money, even if it meant living on Corn Flakes.

When I moved up a notch to be a real life news hound, I got to spend my time at mind-numbing city council meetings or, as I did at one paper, interview the loved ones of soldiers killed in Vietnam.

Things slowly got better as my career progressed. I finally earned enough to buy a house, send the kids to college and keep my wife reasonably well dressed. But if wealth is what I sought, I was in the wrong profession.

We ink-stained wretches justify this by claiming we are motivated by compassion and concern, not cash, although each and every one of us would prefer our paycheck to match our passion. After all, even a seeker after truth has got to eat.

Then there is the fact that nobody likes us very much. While there are two sides to every story, most newsmakers want us to print only their views or at the very least disparage the other side. As a result, we are roundly criticized by liberals and conservatives, Arabs and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Bruins and Trojans, you name it.

To sum it up: If you're seeking love or money, apply elsewhere.

Sound like a lousy job? I never thought so but apparently I was mistaken.

According to the website CareerCast.com, a newspaper reporter is considered the worst job of 2013. The website ranked the top 200 best and worst jobs in the United States, taking into consideration factors including physical demands, work environment, income, stress and hiring outlook.

Reporters were on the bottom of the heap looking up at lumberjacks, soldiers, actors, oil rig workers, dairy farmers, meter readers, roofers and flight attendants, all of which were found to be in preferable professions.

Based on this, I would have been better off chopping down trees or compiling someone's gas bill. But with all due respect to these fine professions, I never had the urge to live in the woods with a bunch of guys in Pendleton shirts while sleeping with my axe. Meter reading may require math, so that's out.

I did the soldier bit. It required complete allegiance to authority and a willingness to die. Cows? I prefer the final product, two scoops of vanilla topped with hot fudge sauce.

But let's get serious. What is missing in this equation is fulfillment. How else can you explain that in the CareerCast survey a podiatrist is listed ahead of a psychiatrist, a skin care specialist is ranked ahead of a surgeon, a bricklayer beats out a judge, a sewage plant operator tops a principal.

Milking a cow or patching a roof may hold untold intellectual pleasures. But I'm not sure it matches the satisfaction of exposing corruption in government, advocating for the downtrodden or exposing rip-offs, cons and frauds.

I suspect the reporting profession was thrown under the bus because the newspaper business is considered a buggy whip industry.

To some extent that's true. Total employment in newspaper publishing has dropped by more than 40 percent in the last decade . In 2001, the industry employed 414,000 people, but that number fell to 246,020 people by 2011.

But last year, revenues declined just 2 percent, according to the Newspaper Association of America. That may not be a reason to pop the champagne corks, but it suggests that the hemorrhaging has slowed and there's life in the old girl yet.

Which is good news for reporters who were thinking of making a career move to an oil rig.

Isolation Is Not the Answer

When I was a kid growing up in a Los Angeles suburb, I rode my bike everywhere. To school. Downtown to go to the movies. To music lessons. To parks. To the homes of friends who lived to the north, south, east and west of me.

It wasn't an act of daring. Most of my friends did the same thing.

It was a time when we could explore and learn about our little corner of the world without restrictions, without fear. If my parents told me to be careful, they meant crossing the street.

There was a cool little hobby shop about a mile away where I spent my allowance on model airplane and car kits. The local community college nearby had a couple of World War II fighters out back, part of an aviation repair curriculum. If you had the fortitude to scale a 12-foot fence, you could climb into the cockpits and shoot down imaginary bad guys.

You could make your way to the local drug story that had a newsstand full of comic books and a soda fountain that served cherry Cokes.

All in a day's travels by bike.

Muggers, pedophiles, felons, scam artists, domestic abusers, terrorists were never part of the conversation. They undoubtedly lurked in the shadows somewhere but they remained out of sight and out of mind.

My greatest fears were bloodthirsty space aliens in flying saucers and ballroom dance classes with the opposite sex.

I thought about all this when the news of the bombings at the Boston Marathon filled our TV screens on Monday.
There is no out of sight, out of mind anymore. Each time there is an act of cowardice, of madness, it blankets us like a bank of fog so thick that we can't see anything else for days.

Worse, it's the children who are hurt the most, sometimes without suffering so much as a scratch.

It is unlikely that any child living now or as yet unborn will experience the sheer exhilaration of exploring the world on his or her own terms as we did many generations ago. Few kids ride their bikes or even walk to school anymore. Drive by any school these days and the streets are choked with the vehicles of moms and dads who ferry their kids everywhere.

Paranoia about crime and terrorism has created a world in which we are restricted and regimented.

We keep our children close by lest they be exposed too soon to a world of mistrust, cynicism and violence.

Perhaps there is some justification for that. As Cormac McCarthy once wrote, "it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all."

So now our kids interact with their fellow human beings and travel the world via a chair in front of a computer screen. They go places we could have never visited on a bike but they never breath the air, smell the roses. And what is lost? Human contact. Face-to-face interaction. An appreciation of cultures other than our own. All pieces of a puzzle that, when assembled, lead to greater understanding.

As a result, we run the danger of confusing isolation with safety.

We need to make sure that our children learn that the world is mostly a warm and wonderful place and that terrorism or mass killings or war may occupy the TV news cycle but don't exist around every corner. After all, the chances of being killed by a terrorist is about 1 in 10 million.

They need to know that the people of Boston, confronted by a disaster, reaffirmed our faith in humanity by reacting with heroism and compassion.

They need to know, as Patton Oswalt observed, "We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. "

They need to know that those responsible for the attacks in Boston are not winning converts to whatever twisted cause they may embrace by killing an 8-year-old boy and maiming his family members.

Most importantly, our kids need to get out from behind their computer screens and out into the sunshine, to embark on voyages of discovery led by parents who remember the way.

The world is too small a place and the stakes are too high for us to raise a generation of isolationists.

Taking a Stab at Airport Security

As part of its ongoing efforts "to enhance security screening measures and improve the passenger experience," the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will now give expedited security checkpoint privileges to passengers willing to sing, dance, juggle or tell jokes to others waiting in line.

OK, so that's a bit of humor, courtesy of a satirical website. But for a moment, you probably thought it was legitimate. Because when it comes to the TSA, nothing seems too bizarre to be true.

These are the same folks who brought us a security pat-down which resembles an awkward romantic encounter in the back seat of a Chevy. Without the heavy breathing.

These are the same folks who produced a list of prohibited items that included such common household items as ice axes, cattle prods and blasting caps.

These are the same folks who decided military personnel are exempt from removing their footwear despite the fact that there have been terrorist acts involving members of the military.

These are the same folks who have decided that it is now OK for passengers to board carrying small knives (2.36 inches or less) or a pool cue, hockey or lacrosse stick, two golf clubs, or a souvenir baseball bat weighing up to a pound and a half.

It's a rollback of regulations that has not played well with politicians, airline employees or the traveling public.

Holding up a bottle of shampoo at a recent hearing, New York Sen.Chuck Schumer said, "I hear outcries from passengers about this ... but almost no one has called my office and said, 'Why can't I bring a sharp knife on an airplane?'"

"While we agree that a passenger wielding a small knife or swinging a golf club... poses less of a threat to the pilot locked in the cockpit, these are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the passenger cabin," Stacy K. Martin, president of Southwest Airlines' flight attendants union, told the Los Angeles Times.

A spokesman for the Allied Pilots Assn., the union that represents pilots from American Airlines, said the announcement caught him by surprise. "It represents a significant step backward in security," said Gregg Overm.

That goes without saying. Someone has failed to remember that the most shocking thing abut 9/11 is how a handful of terrorists armed with simple box cutters - not automatic weapons, not grenades, not swords- killed nearly 3,000 people and changed the geo-political climate throughout the world forever more.

Now, the TSA is changing policy because it would allow airport screeners to focus on "catastrophic" threats to an entire aircraft, including explosives or detonators.

Does that mean agents aren't focusing on such threats now? Or is the act of confiscating knives somehow diminishing the effectiveness of that task?

What will happen when agents are forced to use their time measuring the lengths of knives or the weights of baseball bats?

And if you want to consider a catastrophic scenario, what if a group of terrorists armed with knives started slicing the throats of passengers one by one until the pilots agreed to their demands? Far fetched? So was 9/11.

Locked cockpits might save the pilots but there is little to protect the passenger. If you think there are air marshals on your flight, guess again. According to some estimates, they fly on only about five percent of aircraft although the exact number is secret for obvious reasons.

On a more mundane level, if people start showing up with hockey and lacrosse sticks and golf clubs, where are they going to get stowed? Many won't fit in overhead compartments which are already stuffed to overflowing. And they aren't going to slide easily under a seat.

I can hear the announcement now: "Ladies and gentlemen, is there anyone willing to give up their seat and take a later flight so we can accommodate some lacrosse gear?"

(As an aside, if you don't think golf clubs are dangerous consider the former Mrs. Tiger Woods. She took one swing with a 9-iron and inflicted millions dollars in damage.)

Nobody expected the TSA to be a public relations triumph. Post 9/11, it was put in charge of a security program which made a normally tedious airport experience downright dreadful. The trade-off: you got to your destination in one piece.

Eventually, travelers faced with the frustration and humiliation of a TSA security screening decided that the aforementioned trade-off was worth it.

It still is. I will happily take off my shoes and belt and submit to a frisking to assure the safety of my family and fellow travelers. And I'll be happier still to leave my knife at home.

Brushing Up an Image

"Divine or profane, his is painting on faith: direct, observational subject matter" imbued with an otherworldly ambiguity through the botched certainty of its execution."

"The way he uses lines, shapes, and color speaks to his putting a lot of value on the object or subject of the painting... "

"He seems to have really nailed purple grapes."

Rembrandt? Renoir? Thomas Hart Benton? Andy Warhol?

Nope. This particular outpouring of artspeak was triggered by the works of a reclusive artist whose paintings burst into public view for the first time recently.

His name? George W. Bush.

Yes, that George Bush, the 43rd President of the United States who left office with somewhat of a tarnished image, as they say in the art world.

Just to refresh our memories, a poll of 238 Presidential scholars found that Bush was ranked 39th out of 43, with poor ratings in handling of the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence.

The American public, a forgiving lot, has given him higher approval ratings since he left office, which can be interpreted in a number of ways.

Maybe the publicity surrounding his new-found skills as an artist will enhance his stature even more, although a public display of his work was not his intent.

It seems a hacker wormed his way into a computer owned by the President's sister and revealed his portfolio for all to see. And what we see are everyday objects: cats, dogs, a golf course, a church, a watermelon, a horse, a still life. All done in a style that suggests more Grandma Moses than Claude Monet. (Google George W. Bush Paintings to see the collection.)

There are two works that stand out. One is the President, seen from the rear, naked from the waist up, in a shower with his face reflected in a shaving mirror. The other is a view of his legs and toes in a bathtub.

I guess if we had to see a President bathing we would rather see a fit George Bush than the Jabba-like William Howard Taft.

But because the bathroom series is so out of context with the rest of his work and with the man as we know him, it has sent some in the media into spasms of analysis.

New York writer Dan Amira opines that Bush's self-portraits reveal a former president doing some serious soul-searching in the (almost) twilight of his life. Amira sees Bush "staring off into the corner of the shower, as if contemplating past sins that can never be washed away, no matter how much soap you use and how hard you scrub."

"The bathroom paintings, for example, ooze guilt," writes Travis Diehl in Salon. "They're all about cleansing, la Lady Macbeth; or they're full of remorse for everything from Katrina to waterboarding. "

"Bush's recently revealed attempts at art have had the incredible effect of forcing me to see him as a human being," says Josh Indar at PopMatters. "It's not that the two self-portraits... are technically any good. In fact, they're not even in the realm of good.... But unlike anything by Thomas Kinkade, Bush's amateurish portraits show something I had no idea he was even capable of: Honesty. Introspection. Vulnerability. Doubt... "

I understand that the President of the United States, past or present, is the most visible person on the planet. And that everything he says or does undergoes microscopic scrutiny.

But give Mr. Bush a break. He is not trying to elbow his way into the National Gallery. Like many retired persons, he has a lot of time on his hands and decided to take up painting. And what he produces is intended for friends and family.

While his talent places him somewhere in between the refrigerator door and the Louvre, he's getting in touch with his inner artist. And that's not a bad thing.

Besides, with a little effort, he might be a better painter than president.

Of Popes, Points and Pols

Stories that are making me weary:

The Pope. The resignation of one pope and the selection of another was unquestionably big news. When Pope Benedict gave God three week’s notice, he was the first pontiff to step down in some 600 years. When Pope Francis ascended to the papacy, he was the first non-European to lead the Catholic church in 1300 years.

In between these two events, we were subjected to the silly season. A hundred thousand people gathered in St.Peter’s Square to watch the spectacle and I’m thinking 90,000 of them must have been reporters.

In a desperate search for news, they came up with such gems as “Pope Benedict XVI Will Have to Give Up Red Shoes, Shoulder Cape” and “Anxiety Befalls Vatican as Cardinals Gather.” ABC’s Diane Sawyer quizzed Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of South Africa on what he would pack before moving to the electoral dormitory.

When the smoke cleared, not much had changed. A gentleman of some considerable years was chosen, a man who like his predecessors is devoted to keeping the church squarely entrenched in the 16th century, give or take a millennium or two.

For one week, it was a great show, full of solemnity and ritual. Now it’s business as usual in the Vatican. Nothing to see here, move on.


The Lakers. To put it delicately, the team stinks. That hasn’t stopped the local press corps from churning out stories by the basketful each and every day. The Los Angeles Times sometimes will have three Laker stories on days the team doesn’t even play.

Every utterance from Kobe Bryant is treated as scripture. Every move by Dwight Howard is dissected, analyzed, then studied some more. Injuries are reported in detail that would make the Mayo Clinic proud.

One of their players is named World Peace. Which, like the team's chances, is a long shot.

Worse, reading about the Lakers is like being back in junior high school: who likes who, who doesn’t like who, the spats, the gossip.

This team isn’t going anywhere this year. And when they fail, there will be months of navel gazing. Enough already. Vin Scully and the Dodgers can’t get here soon enough.

The Republican Party. The GOP has been indulged in self-flagellation since Nov.7, 2012, the day they woke up and discovered they had been blitzed in an election they thought they had in the bag.

Since then, one Republican leader after another has decried the fact that their party tried to appeal to an electorate that no longer exists in any significant numbers, and in the process had managed to alienate blacks, Latinos, gays, women, young voters not to mention dogs and cats, birds and bees.

Now, the party has released a report, or an autopsy if you will, that essentially says the same thing. One of the authors of the study said that focus groups described the party as “narrow-minded,” “out of touch” and “stuffy old men.”

We get the point.

If the GOP doesn’t want to go the way of the Whig party, it had better stop continually talking about its failures and start addressing its future. Congressional elections are a little more than a year away.


The NFL in L.A. Welcome to another chapter of “As the Football Turns.”

Tim Leiweke has put his heart and sole into bringing NFL football to Los Angeles on behalf of his boss, Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz. His reward? Anschutz throws him under the bus and says he’ll personally take charge of getting a deal done.

The NFL’s reaction? Commissioner Roger Goodell in a statement that fairly oozes with tepid interest, says of Anschutz, “ He seems that he would like to get a stadium built in Los Angeles that would be suitable for an NFL team. We look forward to working on that.”

After 18 years of hollow promises and dead deals, the next thing I want to hear on this subject it that an agreement has been reached. If I live that long.

Lindsey Lohan: Enough said.

Audacious Behavior

Attention, students. Today we will explore the words "audacity" and its cousin "audacious."

The first thing you need to know about these words is that they are loaded with nuances.

Audacity is heroic and inspiring. The SEAL mission that terminated Osama bin Laden was audacious. So was George Washington crossing the Delaware on a dark winter night in 1776 to attack the British in Trenton. The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk were audacious. So was Neil Armstrong when he set foot on the moon.

Audacity can also be evil. 9/11 was audacious. So was Pearl Harbor. So was the systematic roundup and annihilation of Jews by the Nazis.

Audacity can be artistic. Picasso was audacious. So was Beethoven. And Elvis Presley. Stanley Kubrick defined the word as a film director. Marlin Brando and Katherine Hepburn did it as actors.

Audacity can also be absurd. In the words of author Jim Butcher, "There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy."

One person who crossed that line is Mark Sanford. You remember Mark. He was the former South Carolina governor who threw away his political career and his family to chase after some Argentinian hottie he called "his soul mate."

It was 2009 when Sanford disappeared from the Governor's Mansion for six days, his whereabouts unknown to his staff and family. It turns out he was in Argentina with a lady love to whom he was not wed.

He told an aide that he was "hiking the Appalachian Trail," which instantly became a sarcastic euphemism for extra-marital hanky-panky.

His wife and four sons moved out of the mansion and she shortly thereafter filed for divorce. In the midst of this, he refused to resign his gubernatorial position despite being threatened with impeachment.

Fast forward to now: Sanford, apparently feeling the tug of political life, has decided to run for Congress. He certainly has name recognition. But what he really needs is a top-rate campaign manager to smooth his return to the national stage.

So who does he turn to? His ex-wife, according to a story in New York magazine. They haven't exactly been exchanging Valentine's Day cards but she has a reputation as a shrewd political strategist who helped run his gubernatorial campaign. So Sanford, mustering all his charm, tells her, "I could pay you this time." What a silver-tongued devil.

She declined. And you can bet the word "audacious" crossed her mind.

Audacity gone wrong isn't always fatal. Consider the case of Roy Brown, who died recently at 96.

Brown was a veteran automotive designer in the 1950s who was charged with overseeing a new car the Ford people wanted to produce. His marching orders were to produce a car that could be recognized from a block away.

He did just that. In spades. Brown brought forth the Edsel, a car that was long on audacity and short on appeal. Indeed, it became one of the greatest flops in automotive history.

His chrome encrusted behemoth was, in the words of automotive industry analyst Maryann Keller "almost grotesque." She cited among the vehicle's flaws its "hundreds of pounds of unnecessary weight in bumpers."

Undeterred, Brown went on to help design the Thunderbird and a show car that inspired the Batmobile.

He expressed pride in his doomed creation and drove an Edsel until he died. When people would ask to buy it, he would reply, "Where the hell were you in 1958?"

Last but not least, audacity can be expensive.

The principality of Monaco perched on the French Riviera has become the most expensive city in the world when it comes to real estate, according to Knight Frank, a London-based real-estate firm. It reported that the average price of real-estate in Monaco was between $5,350 and $5,920 per square foot.

To put that in perspective, that means spending $1 million will get you a 200 square-foot closet - presumably without a water view.

By comparison, New York, which is nobody's bargain, prices in at $2,161 a square foot.

The question is: which is more audacious, the asking price or the people willing to pay it?