Here’s your chance to get in rhetorical shape for the ethics rigors ahead in what promises to be a challenging summer.
Baseball’s Spring Training has just six days to go, but it also is the only part of the 2023 season prep with genuine full-team workouts. This is because so many players participated in the World Baseball Tournament on teams ranging from Israel and Australia to Cuba and South Korea. In the finals, the Japanese team won it all this week in a close 3-2 win over the United States. Mike Trout, the best player on Earth, struck out with the tying run on base.
Meanwhile, MLB issued a bunch of rule adjustments embarrassingly—ridiculously, really– late, because, as is often the case when new rules and laws are passed, the people passing them didn’t think through all of the ramifications and unintended consequences of the changes they were making.
One piece of good news for MLB is that the institution of a time limitation on how long pitchers could take to throw the ball to the plate and limits on batters stepping out of the box to fiddle with their batting gloves or whatever cut more than 20 minutes of dead time out of the average game. That’s a lot, and infuriating, because the wasted time could have and should have been curtailed long ago without having to use a pitch clock.
But enough of baseball—the Red Sox will be fine, incidentally, don’t believe what you hear—it’s time to
Ethics Alarms 
Trout being struck out by Ohtani was a veritable “Casey at the Bat” moment. I’d say Ohtani is the best player on the planet, maybe the best ever. How can the Angels be so terrible?
The Angels are terrible because superstars in baseball have less impact than in any other sport, because Trout was injured much of the season and Anthony Rendon, the Angels other offensive star, is never healthy. Ohtani gives them one great starting pitcher and one more star hitter, but if the rest of the 26 man squad is mediocre, that’s not enough, and is never enough.
It’s just amazing what a long running car wreck they’ve been. Artie Moreno made a fortune in Arizona from billboards. Such ineptitude in what should be a slam dunk big market franchise. Where have you gone, Jim Fregosi.
Remember, the Angels have also been cursed almost from the beginning. The team has had more weird career ending injuries and deaths than the rest of the AL combined over the same period. They lost a likely pennant in 1986 on one of the flukiest desperation swing homers in MLB history. It’s a fascinating franchise, but I’m glad I’m not a fan.
They never seem to have been taken seriously in LA. Maybe their park’s being next to Disneyland has had something to do with it. Or maybe they just can’t compete with the Dodgers for local fans. The Dodgers have monopolized Chicano LA, certainly since Fernando.
The Angel can be so terrible because, as a franchise, that is what they do.
Most people have something that they excel at, right?
Well, the Angels special superpower is taking fantastically gifted athletes and melding them into a sub-.500 team, and they have been doing it for at least a generation.
Those of us whose teams compete in the AL West can only be thankful to have the Angels to kick around.
A guessing game.
Question #1: In which state did the following scenario play out earlier this year?
A man with a pistol attempted to rob a convenience store. Authorities said a customer, who was legally carrying a concealed pistol, pulled out his gun and intervened.
Police said a second customer went to his car to get his pistol and returned to help to subdue the suspect.
Authorities said the robber was attempting to leave when the third customer, a friend of the second, who was also armed, also went inside to assist.
The first customer advised the other two that the criminal had been disarmed and told the other customers not to shoot him. Police then arrived at the scene and told the robber to stop and get down and when the suspect refused, the officer tasered him and took him into custody. None of the other people were arrested.
Hint: This occurred in a smallish town just outside the district of a somewhat notorious congresswoman (No, not a “squad” member).
Second Question: In how many states would the robber be released without bail and the three armed citizens arrested and charged, instead?
Of course the easy guess would be Texas, and it does sound an awful lot like something that could easily happen in most of Texas.
But let’s try a different region that might have this outcome — how about the norther tier of western states? I am thinking Montana Wyoming, Idaho, the Dakotas, and perhaps even northern Wisconsin or the Upper Peninsula in Michigan.
Alternative theory — Utah.
Good logical guesses. Actual location was the town of Ellijay, in north Georgia…just a bit east of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district boundary (with a similar constituency…Our usual summer Boy Scout camp is a little north of there).
As to the second question, probably no definite answers, but a compilation of various news reports could undoubtably confirm suspicions of where authorities go after law-abiding armed citizens, and where the focus is on excusing criminals.
e.g.:
Illinois man with carry permit loses 3 years defending legal self defense
Soros prosecutor has to be hounded by police to charge man with stolen guns posting threats to a school
I’ve got an opinion about this one, but I’m interested in others’ thoughts.
Just to be clear, the SuperBook in question is the sports betting outfit, not the CBN affiliate.
Legalized cell phone sports betting is a can of worms the size of Texas. The franchise owners and sports book owners are deliriously happy with their assets’ soaring worth, but I’m convinced this is not going to end well. For one thing, I wonder how on earth credit card companies are underwriting the risks of their customers’ gambling debts.
“Parental rights end when you decide to send your kids to public school,” stated attorney, Andrew Sanchez, who recently led a training session for New Mexico teachers and school board members in Bernalillo County.
He asserted that the radical left ideology being taught in schools is “simply civic and patriotic values common to all Americans of equity, justice, and equal treatments.
You’re supposed to be making Americans who at some point, later on, can decide what political affiliation they want.”
Sanchez even went as far as to imply that schools are teaching this ideology in order to replace values being taught by parents at home so that they will vote “appropriately” when they are adults.
He said, “What you teach this generation that will soon be voting are going to be instrumental to the future of us as a democracy and as society goes forward.”
Isn’t that special…
https://realfreedomtalk.com/undercover-video-state-official-says-parental-rights-end-when-you-send-your-kids-to-public-school/
NPR getting rolled in the comments is delightful.
I have to confess I cannot figure out how to see the comments. I don’t see any link in the article to them. Is that something you have to subscribe to NPR to view? That’s probably a hill too far, if so.
Sorry- the comments on Twitter. The replies to the tweet.
Why is my comment visible on this Jetpack app invisible on the website?
I see it!
It’s weird. It didn’t show up immediately like usual but I checked an hour or so later and it was there.
There’s been a lot f weirdness on WP for months now. For example, periodically I lose the ability to edit or comment on my own posts from the site directly. I can’t link in some formats.
I think they migrated to a new platform called “jetpack” and it’s been wonky
I mistakenly did a twitter search for “alamo” and “slavery”. I’m worried for people’s academic ability.
Too many people believe that the 1835-1836 rebellion against Santa Anna’s 1835 usurpation of the 1824 Constitution was actually about the Mexican ban on slavery in 1829 (which Mexico actually carved out an exception for Texas as well as generally turned a blind eye to the practice because they were more interested in colonists to settle the land than they were in abolitionist principles).