The Alligator

Yes- I am late blogging about Barry Bonds’ historic home run. Maybe I just wanted the historical histrionics to be over too. Face it- I only once wrote about sports on this blog. It just isn’t my bag. The last time it was about French footballer Zindaine and his bad behavior in the 2006 World Cup. This time- oddly enough it is also about questionable behavior but it is also more than that. It’s about a city, my home town, that seems more and more a city of contradictions.

Let’s get the steroid thing out there straight off. A statement that “I never knowingly took steroids” is an absurd statement. Sports journalist Bob Costas made an excellent point that someone as fastidious and obsessive about disciplining his body as is Bonds would never have been so careless as to ingest anything “accidentally”. So as political journalists call it- there you have your “non- denial denial”. Everyone with half a brain knows that Bonds took steroids. His super human abilities got better as he aged where most non-bionics actually decline as they get older. But really it is his own statement about not knowingly taking steroids that tells the real story. Oh yeah – there is also the fact that his best friend and trainer- Greg Anderson is sitting in jail rather than giving testimony that might implicate Bonds. If it wouldn’t implicate Bonds- I doubt he’d be sitting in jail. I sure hope Bonds gives him half his Giants salary for being his fall guy. Roman Emperors rarely had a Praetorian guard that would have so completely fallen on their sword.

So yeah – the record is tainted. Yes even this tainted record is admirable- but one can never be sure which home runs we should cheer and which ones were juiced. We’ll never know- because Bonds will never come clean. Besides Mr. Bonds just doesn’t seem like a the “role model” that so many sports heroes were in my childhood. True my heroes were more in the realm of opera than baseball- but I had friends OBSESSED with baseball heroes. Bonds is just one of a series of professional athletes disappointing us. True steroids aren’t as bad as murder, dog abuse and rape- but it isn’t lofty and bottom line- “drugs is drugs is drugs” and cheating isn’t a good thing either.  But these guys should realize that part of their job is PR and being a role model.  They seem to resent that- but too bad— that’s part of what you signed up for when you signed some obscenely high paying contract. 

But let’s get back to that “record”.  Actually Mr. Bonds is only the questionable home run king in the United States, he does not hold the world wide record.

There is another baseball player who has actually hit more home runs in professional baseball. Sadaharu Oh is a former baseball player and manager of the Yomiuri Giants in Nippon Professional Baseball and is the current manager of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks. He holds the professional baseball record for home runs, having hit 868 in his prestigious career. How US-centric that we conveniently forget about baseball in other countries!

Yes- baseball is “America’s past time” but as ball players behaving badly has become the norm here, it is actually respected more in many other countries- Cuba and Japan specifically. The Japanese are probably more baseball obsessed than Americans. Yet in our world where apparently the world revolved around the USA and others do not exist “at our rarified level” we do not recognize Oh’s record. It seems even the venerated Hank Aaron gave some sort of nod to Oh- in 1988 Oh and Aaron teamed up and created the World Children’s Baseball Fair (WCBF), to increase the popularity of baseball by working with youngsters.

So yes- the record is questionable because of steroids and it isn’t a worldwide record anyway. But here in my city by the bay- I could be tarred and feathered if any body heard me say something remotely negative about Barry Bonds (I should have used a pseudonym for this blog!). San Franciscans are blinded by this record. Bonds is their hero. For goodness sakes- City Hall has been lit up like Linus’s Giant Pumpkin for the past few weeks. It’s an homage to the Giants- since their colors are orange and black. I guess they decided it wasn’t a good idea to light the city hall rotunda black.

San Francisco is a city that is OBSESSED with fairness and openness. The city’s sunshine ordinance insists on a level of “openness” in government that is seen very few other places. But we don’t seem to want to see the man behind the curtain where Bonds is concerned.

Maybe it’s because Balco and other steroid producing shops are the product of neighboring Silicon Valley that San Francsicans don’t balk at bionic prowess -after all San Francsico is just lousy with Silicon Valley millionaires and they invented this crap.

But I really think that San Franciscans want the rest of the country to like us- and see us as regular guys who, like middle America, love baseball. And not only do we love baseball we have the baseball King here!

Nope- we ain’t  a buncha latte drinkin’, wine sippin’, foie gras eatin’ pansy-assed liberals here!  We love hot dog, beer and baseball! F’ing A! But truly you can get some pretty good eats (the garlic fries are too die for!) and some vintage wines at AT&T park (shhhhhh- even baseball in San Francsico is prissy!).

But alas- Mr. Bonds isn’t giving San Francsico the opportunity to be seen as one of the guys. I am proud of being a liberal (latte drinking and all) and don’t feel the necessity to show the rest of the country that we have as much testosterone as they do even if it is out of a syringe.

Come on San Francisco! Get with it- celebrate who we are. Part of who we are has always been to expose those who are hypocrites. Why are we celebrating one of the all time biggiest bypocrites in the annals of sports?

I think Barry Bonds should sign right now to guest star on the upcoming TV series the “Bionic Woman” - after all they are perfectly matched!

Is it cheesy for me to jump on the “Live Earth” bandwagon today by writing a piece about gloabal warming? Hell no. It is critical, it is essential, it is vital, it is life and death for our planet. Did my redundancy get your attention yet?

We know that the earth has become warmer over the last century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), reports that the average surface temperature of the earth has increased during the twentieth century by about 0.6° ± 0.2°C. (The ± 0.2°C means that the increase might be as small as 0.4°C or as great as 0.8°C.)

This may seem like a small shift, but although regional and short-term temperatures do fluctuate over a wide range, global temperatures are generally quite stable. In fact, the difference between today’s average global temperature and the average global temperature during the last Ice Age is only about 5 degrees C. Indeed, it’s warmer today around the world than at any time during the past 1000 years, and the warmest years of the previous century have occurred within the past decade.

We also know that human activities—primarily the burning of fossil fuels—have increased the greenhouse gas content of the earth’s atmosphere significantly over the same period. Carbon dioxide is one of the most important greenhouse gases, which trap heat near the planet’s surface.

The vast majority of climate researchers agree with these overall findings. The scientific disagreements that do still exist primarily concern detailed aspects of the processes that make up these largely accepted general themes.

Climate change is one of the most complex issues that the world will face in this century.  Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have already reached unprecedented levels, causing changes in global temperature and observable impacts throughout the world, and these changes are happening more quickly than expected.  Stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations will require a fundamental shift in our energy system, but this transition will have other benefits as well, including improved competitiveness, security, air quality, public health, and job creation. This transition will not be easy, but it is crucial to begin now.

In February 2006 The Pew Center on Climate Change issued an “Agenda for Climate Action”. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change was established by the Pew Charitable Trusts to bring a new cooperative approach and critical scientific, economic, and technological expertise to the global climate change debate. We intend to inform this debate through wide-ranging analyses that will add new facts and perspectives in four areas: policy (domestic and international), economics, environment, and solutions.

This Pew Center’s Agenda attempts to articulate a responsible course of action for addressing climate change. It identifies 15 actions that should be started now, including U.S. domestic reductions and engagement in the international negotiation process. While reductions across sectors and sources of emissions is key, the steps listed here are not likely to happen simultaneously, nor without costs. However, these recommendations have been designed to be both cost-effective and comprehensive.

I big caveat here- I am not a scientist and I have never done a lot of research on global climate change outside of news articles and visiting some of the websites on both sides of this debate and of course I saw “An Unconveniant Truth. Thanks to the internet to we all have amazing access to research and information on every side of this issue- although I really don’t think that there are many sides to this issue anymore –on one side you have science and on the other side you have— I don’t know what to call them—- NUTS?

I have done a little investigating and find that the Pew Agenda is probably the most thoughtful and sound report I could find without spending months, if not years, reading every report posted on the web with an agenda for climate change. I have Pew for other research for pieces on this blog and have found their information to be nonpartisan, based in science and most importantly upheld by many other sources.

Here is a synopsis of the Pew Report’s 15 reccomendations in its Agenda for Climate Action.

Invest in science and technology research.

1. Ensure a robust research program through the Climate Change Science Program.

2. Offer long-term, stable funds—in the form of a reverse auction—to GHG-related technology research and development.

Establish mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions and harness market mechanisms for economy-wide reductions

3. Create a mandatory GHG reporting system as a basis for an economy-wide emissions trading program.

4. Implement a large-source, economy-wide cap-and trade program for greenhouse gases.

Stimulate innovation across key economic sectors.

5. Transportation: Convert the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program into strengthened, tradable corporate average emissions standards. Support biofuels, hydrogen, and other low-GHG fuel alternatives.

6. Manufacturing: Provide outreach and incentives to manufacturers for improvements in industrial efficiency and low-GHG technologies, and support the production of low-GHG products.

7. Agriculture: Raise the priority and funding levels for Farm Bill programs and other federal initiatives on carbon sequestration.

Drive the energy system toward greater efficiency, lower-carbon fuels and carbon capture technologies.

8. Coal and Carbon Sequestration: Provide funding for tests of geologic carbon sequestration and for research, development and demonstration (RD&D) projects on separation and capture technologies, in combination with advanced generation coal plants. Establish an appropriate regulatory framework for carbon storage.

9. Natural Gas: Expand natural gas transportation infrastructure and production.

10. Renewables: Significantly “ramp up” renewables for electricity and fuels, including an extension/expansion of the production tax credit, a uniform system for tracking renewable energy credits, and increased emphasis on biomass.

11. Nuclear Power: Provide opportunities for nuclear power to play a continuing role in a future low carbon electricity sector.

12. Efficient Energy Production and Distribution: Support the development and use of combined heat and power installations, distributed generation technologies, and test beds for an upgraded electricity grid.

13. Efficient Energy Usage: Reduce energy consumption through policies that spur efficiency, including appliance/equipment standards, building R&D and codes, and consumer education.

Begin now to adapt to the inevitable consequences of climate change.

14. Develop a national adaptation strategy through the Climate Change Science Program and Climate Change Technology Program, and fund development of early-warning systems for related threats.

Engage in negotiations to strengthen the international climate effort.

15. Review options for a new or modified agreement to ensure fair and timely action by all major emitting countries, and participate in negotiations to establish binding climate commitments consistent with domestic interests.

While these fifteen recommendations are not the only means of achieving a lower carbon future, but taken together, they chart a climate-friendly path for the United States. Putting the Agenda into practice will take political will and policy action. All recommendations require government leadership and private sector commitment and time. Nonetheless, the details of specific recommendations in this Agenda are less critical than the compelling need to get started. Further delay will only make the challenge before us more daunting and costly.

If you want to know what you can do- and to make a commitment and take a pledge to do what you can do personally go to www.liveearth.org  

The most common annoying quip that conservative Americans make about the French is that they surrender at the drop of a hat.  Of course I take umbrage with that sentiment- all one needs to do is take a tour of small French villages and see the number of WW I dead in order to understand their WW II actions!  But the French sure didn’t surrender during the final match of the World Cup!  While Italy won during the Penalty Kick finale- France certainly played a better game and controlled the ball for most of the match.  Notwithstanding Zidane’s unexplicable, immature and embarassing head butt that rightfully got him thrown out of the game (what a self-destructive way to end his glorious career!) - the French team sure put forward a powerful team.  Both Italy and France have much to be proud of- the played a “beautiful game”.