This is Why You Were Booed at the Cubs' Convention, Mr. Ricketts

To those of us in the ninety-nine percent, you are an insanely wealthy man. While your ownership put an end to the century-long championship drought, it has also overseen a renovation of Wrigley Field that spouts revenue like those fountains in front of swanky Las Vegas hotels.

And good for you. You are entirely within your rights to make as much money from your businesses as humanly possible. Where you go wrong is when you say “I don't have any more money.” You understand how that sounds, right? It's a screaming, neon-lit definition of disingenuous.

I'm sure each arm in your Cubs' kingdom has a budget and a profit and loss statement, and after dropping 391 million on long-term contracts to Jason Heyward, Yu Darvish, Tyler Chatwood and Craig Kimbrel your wallet is pretty sore.

But here's the thing. The Cubs aren't a quote-unquote business. They're a civic institution. You just happen to be the current owner. And when you say you don't have any more money, you are effectively cutting the heart out of it.

The window is still open. These Cubs are young and in their prime and just a savvy trade or two removed from contention. I'm going to presume this isn't news to you. Otherwise, you wouldn't have fired Joe Maddon. 

And yet you've essentially told the three mainstays in your lineup that their time in Chicago has a sell-by date.

Huh?

Inviting some combination of Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez and Kris Bryant to put up their feet and stay awhile would accomplish two things: it would destroy the notion you're ready to shred the championship-era Cubs and begin another rebuild (not the wisest proposition as you prepare to unveil your in-house cable channel) while proving you're still interested in further burnishing the Cubs brand (not to mention your own) with another title.

Are you?

Based on their 2019 contributions, three-fifths of your pitching staff could be described as wobbly. Bullpen issues abound. And who's going to play second base?

But the folk who pay forty-bucks to park and munch on seven-dollar hot dogs while swilling ten-dollar beer know these aren't insurmountable problems. There's still plenty of gas in the tank and topping it off for another run is just a savvy (there's that word again) trade or two away.

I'm aware that Major League Baseball's interminable crawl to a decision regarding the Bryant case isn't helping.

But you're putting out mixed signals. Where's the evidence of a clear, decisive game plan? Is moving Will Venable from first-base coach to third-base coach what GM Theo Epstein meant by a “reckoning”? Are you tearing down and preparing to rebuild or are you reloading?

Nothing foments restlessness among the electorate like the mixed messages of indecision.

You have to know that letting Rizzo, Baez and Bryant go with nothing in return puts you closer to Daniel Snyder than Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, right?

Look. The Cubs' organization is obviously very fond of David Ross. Do him a favor and give him a chance. And just imagine the hero worship if the Cubs could pluck one more title from the MLB firmament. 

Even if you do enable that contagion in the White House.

 

The Sanctity of Life Test

There is very little talk of it, and with good reason. With fifty-nine people slaughtered within seconds at the hands of a psychopath firing an automatic weapon from the thirty-second floor of a Las Vegas hotel, we're still trying to come to terms with a world changing faster than we can cope with.

But what about the wounded? What about those left alive to face a life impaired and diminished by Stephen Paddock's selfish and petulant rage? Who's going to pay the medical bills for those facing months or even years of highly specialized care and intensive physical therapy?

If this were a plane crash or a train wreck, victims would have an obvious alternative: sue the operator of said conveyance. But things become a bit thornier when guns are involved. That's because gun manufacturers can't be held liable for the carnage they enable.

Thanks to a 2005 bill called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, gun manufacturers are allowed to go about their business unconcerned and unhindered by bothersome law suits, even as their products place an inordinate demand on public services at great public expense.

Why? Because, to quote Dana Carvey's Church Lady character from Saturday Night Live, gun manufacturers are special.

No municipal, county, state or even federal unit of government can sue gun manufacturers to recover the costs incurred by firearms. In other words, despite the fact that alcohol, cigarettes and guns place an exorbitant amount of people at risk because of the very nature of their products, only the manufacturers of alcohol and cigarettes can be held responsible.

Gun manufacturers get off scot-free.

Lest I overstate their immunity to prosecution, the following scenario should clarify things: say the man raping your wife takes exception to her efforts to free herself and attempts to shoot her, only to have the gun misfire and injure him.

He is fully entitled to sue to manufacturer of the gun in question.

But if some cretin is disappointed by the contents of your daughter's purse and blows a hole in her head? Well, tough luck, bro. Sorry for your loss.

This twisted dynamic exists because we the people have mostly allowed it. Aided and abetted by our so-called elected representation, we have empowered the NRA's well-funded lobbyists to eliminate virtually everything standing in the way of unfettered and unlimited gun ownership.

Does anyone really believe the founding fathers could have imagined Stephen Paddock and his ilk when they created the Second Amendment nearly a quarter of a millennia ago? Does anyone really believe that a nation flooded with firearms was their intent? 

Besides the NRA, I mean.

The NRA is evil. It is an industry trade group bent on protecting and advancing market opportunities for the manufacturers of guns. Nothing more, nothing less. Feel free to laugh at their stated purpose of promoting gun safety.

They have been spectacularly successful at acquiring power and wield it like a police truncheon. Their heavy-handed efforts have yielded a congress too terrified to even suggest moderate gun reform.

Have you ever considered the similarities between ISIS and the National Rifle Association? Both are fear-mongers. Both prey upon the ignorant and manipulate them until they're foaming-at-the-mouth angry. Neither will brook even the slightest, most miniscule bit of reform or compromise.

(But I will credit the NRA with having a slicker, more well-oiled PR team.)

Their only distinguishing feature is that while ISIS likes to take credit for its members acts of terrorism, the NRA keeps an official distance even as it provides an umbrella of protection under which the darkest and most-destructive forces in American society can exist.

The NRA is the mother of all enablers. Make no mistake: Stephen Paddock, Omar Mateen, Dylann Roof and Adam Lanza were all enabled by the NRA and its ceaseless, unswerving mission to make the greatest number of guns available to the greatest number of people.

But the NRA's most-lethal threat lies in its ability to fund-raise and consequently, its ability to influence legislation. Without the NRA, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act doesn't happen. Along with several dozen other pieces of self-serving legislation that enables the gun trade while essentially flushing public safety down the toilet.

Again, in the eyes of NRA leadership, compromise is tantamount to heresy. It has drummed out members of its own leadership for merely hinting that compromise might be the best way forward. Again, it's the NRA's way or no way.

That being the case, we the people need to figure out a way to shrink it. Neuter it. Or better yet, bring in the wrecking ball and destroy it. The NRA is antithetical to the very notion of democracy (a word Republicans continue to use despite their obvious contempt for it).

Write. Text. Phone. E-mail. Make it clear to your elected representation—on every level—that you are not okay with the unrestricted avalanche of guns flooding our country thanks to the relentless efforts of the NRA.

Tell them you're not okay with 559 people having their lives ended or irreparably damaged because they attended a country music festival in the same zip code a U.S. citizen decided to validate his existence by ending theirs.

Left unacted upon, ask them what we will one day have left to protect.

Our government and the leaders we elect routinely claim to loathe terrorism and seek the path to end it.

Physician, heal thyself. End the NRA's influence. Now.

The Trouble with Harry

Years ago, while reading Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, I was struck by the predicament of Claudia, a small child turned into a vampire at the tender age of six. While she continued to develop intellectually, she was trapped in the body of a small girl.

Depending on how you look at it, Claudia was either blessed with or consigned to eternal childhood.

Which brings us to Prince Harry.

Imagine life in the most vertical social strata on planet Earth. Barring the most tragic happenstance, Harry is relegated to a lifetime as number-two. It doesn’t matter how well he masters it, he will likely never be king. He is a substitute. A back-up. A three-dimensional, carbon-based insurance policy for the United Kingdom.

It is a future as confining as it is secure.

Harry was frolicking recently in Las Vegas, where he was photographed playing billiards with a female companion. Innocent enough, except that the would-be emperor had no clothes.

While many of us will scratch our heads and wonder what he was thinking, still others will ask simply why not? Does it really matter what Harry does? Why not play strip billiards, even with a cell phone camera in the room?

After all, it’s not as if he has to worry about appeasing a prospective employer, is it? His prospects are neither hurt nor enhanced by his behavior. Harry's path is etched in stone. Harry is Jeff Bridges in Fearless. Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. And Claudia from Interview with the Vampire.

His future is very unlikely to change.

Harry is a young man with everything—except the ability to alter his career path. For all the wealth and the privilege and the fame and even the eager young women, I don’t envy Harry much.

Thumbing your nose at consequence can’t be very fulfilling when so few consequences exist.