Let’s take a look at our entertainment businesses, amusement parks and or favorite national sports pastimes such as baseball. Baseball, more than any other sport, has been analogous with “The American Way,” along with apple pie and “aw shucks.” Baseball has been one of our main escapes during times of depression, war, and the summertime heat.
Now, nearly one year after America’s greatest national tragedy, when we need moments of escape more than ever… when we need to cling more dearly to the people and things we love the most…the sport of baseball was not only slapping us across our face, they were about to kick us when we are down. This threatened baseball strike may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. So, what if a strike is averted this time, what about the next time? I guarantee there will be a next time, the question is when again?
Are ballplayers and managers being unfairly taxed? Can they afford to pay more tax than the rest of us? Is this why the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer? Is it fair that some major movie stars command $20,000,000 in salary per film and the viewing public has to pay nearly $10 per ticket and $5 for a box of popcorn? A trip to Disneyland for a family of four is nearly cost prohibitive, nearly $200 without any meals. I’m thinking there are some serious things wrong with “this picture!” I’m talking about the big picture, our state of economy and morality. Never mind where the problem began, where is it all going to end?
Nowadays I read the business news section and get more laughs than I do reading the comics. Rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric, ah we know it well. The sad truth is that we can’t point any fingers at just one thing, person, or problem. Again, one doesn’t have to understand where or how corruption begins, we need only to admit that we have a problem, and each of us is responsible for it. We’re all co-dependent; we’re all enablers. We complain but we keep reaching down deeper into our pockets nonetheless.
