Money Talks

 

Several things are true at once about basketball, among them:

• The rise in popularity of Caitlin Clark, soon to be a rookie in the WNBA with Indianapolis, has contributed mightily to the rise in popularity of women's basketball.
• Even non-basketball fans follow and support Caitlin, the #1 draft pick in the women's league, while most non-fans could not tell you the name of last year's top pick in the male league (Victor Wembanyama)
• Wembanyama made $12.16 million for his first year, while Clark will make $76,535 for her rookie season.

Forbes magazine, the bible of capitalism, is asking, "Can Caitlin Clark fix the WNBA and NBA pay gap?"

That's asking a lot from one person.  As Kareem Abdul-Jabbar points out, the NBA is a $10 billion business with teams playing 82 games per year.  The WNBA teams play 40 times, and the league itself rolls in $200 million worth of hard-earned fan dollars.

And the women are working under a contract that allows them to carve out just 10% of that pie, whereas the men slice 40% out of their league's much bigger pie. The women's contract is not up for renewal until next year.

You could look it up - baseball players and football players did not make the huge salaries everyone envies these days. People love to say that yesterday's heroes were much better than today's players, well, you had to be among your sport's immortals to crack $100,000 in the 1960s. 

The Baltimore Orioles' greatest pitcher ever was our beloved Jim "Pancakes" Palmer, who, as a 20-year old, won Game Two of the 1966 World Series, shutting out the heavily-favored Los Angeles Dodgers. 

Palmer earned $7,500 that year and spent the offseason selling suits to men at Hamburger's Clothing downtown - he needed the extra $150 a week "to pay for groceries, hot water and electricity.”

As the 70s dawned, it dawned on a labor lawyer named Marvin Miller that the baseball clubs were raking in astronomical amounts of money and saving most of it for themselves, while putting on the old poor mouth and feigning poverty. Miller got the owners to have to open their books and show their profit-and-loss statements, and the next thing you know, the Lords of Baseball had to split their Golden Egg omelet more fairly.

The WNBA players are going to generate a lot of money. They play a much more entertaining and watchable game, to my mind. That will translate to ticket, TV, and cable revenues, and if they find the Marvin Miller of the 2020s, these tall women won't be playing for short money soon.

 

"Judgment is merciless to one who has not shown mercy"

If you saw the docudramaseries (See? Anyone can make their own homemade portmanteau*!) "We Own This City," you remember the rampant crime family that terrorized the city of Baltimore for several years. City police were reluctant to do anything about these marauders because...the marauders were themselves city police.

And, remember, this was a true story, not something made up in Hollywood. The leader of the syndicate that operated as the "Gun Trace Task Force" was a preening strutter named Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, whose main goal was amassing a huge fortune by stuffing the steel cans buried in his backyard with stolen money. Jenkins, now known as "#62928-037," is a guest at a federal prison in Kentucky But another officer in the motley crew, Daniel Hersl, was regarded as the nastiest of the nasty, a boy who came up from the rough streets of East Baltimore, donning blue and brutalizing his former neighbors to an extent that even surprised his fellow cops. 

When the merciless beg for some mercy.

Hersl is serving an 18-year federal prison sentence, and last year, he was given the worst news: terminal cancer is killing him. So last fall, he asked a judge if he could be excused from prison because he wanted to spend time with his young son before death takes him away.

The judge turned him down.

So now, back comes Hersl. He says he wants to take responsibility and apologize for what he did on the streets and courtrooms. Remember, these rogues went down for racketeering (for stealing money from people), lying to investigators, filing false paperwork and making fraudulent overtime claims.

Federal court records show an email Hersl sent to his attorney containing these words:   

  "This horrible disease has allowed me to do some soul searching, and I believe that, at this point in my life, it is time to do what is best for me and so many others that the GTTF may have affected. I'm truly sorry for the way myself and others that I worked with acted and treated others during our time as police officers ... I know it has been over seven years since the GTTF scandal occurred, and, to my knowledge, I have still not heard anyone apologize to the public or to the justice system for our actions."

So he decides to be the bigger man, saying, "I accept full responsibility for my conduct."

The time to accept full responsibility for his actions was the day he pinned on the badge he soon disgraced. Today, he is accepting the results of his failure to do so.

* a portmanteau is a term for a new word created by fusing two old ones, such as "breathalyzer" (breath analyzer) or "fortnight" (two weeks of fourteen nights).  Originally, a portmanteau was a French suitcase that opens into two parts.

Sunday Rerun: He's Finnished

 Let's turn to the News From All Over The World:  The deputy mayor of the capital of Finland is in a legal jam. People want him to  pay compensation for damages and to quit his deputy mayorship, because he was caught spray-painting graffiti in a railway tunnel.

The guy's name is Paavo Arhinmäki, he is one of four deputy mayors in Helsinki, and the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency says it's going to cost them 3,500 Euros ($3,830 American) to sandblast the graffiti.

It's not like he's 13, the average age of someone with a can of spray paint in their hand. This dude is 46 and holds a responsible position, and now it seems he is responsible for the damage to a rail tunnel.

Finnish art experts appraised his work and say it looks like he was inspired by New York City sprayed damage from the 70s.

And this being 2023, Arhinmäki couldn't wait to get on Facebook to talk his way out of it, or try to. He admits to being a graffitier in his younger days and supporting "street art," that field of endeavor in which the artist confuses public property for his own canvas. 

Oh, and he apologized for his "stupid fooling around."

Finland’s largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, showed off the deputy mayor's handiwork in a tweet.

This is in a tunnel used by cargo trains, so it's not like he chose a "canvas" where his genius would be shared with many people, just a conductor and a hobo or two.

“I have committed a crime and bear full responsibility for it,” Arhinmäki said, but he also said he refuses to quit.

Every year, Helsinki spends almost 3/4 of a million dollars to remove illegal graffiti in that city of 650,000 residents, whose lives are not measurably improved by having a politician spraypaint all over the place.

 

The Saturday Picture Show, April 20, 2024

 

At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, this is known as The Immovable Ladder. It's been there since the church was built in the Fourth Century. Nothing about the church can be moved without the agreement of the six branches of Christianity, so the ladder stays, as anyone who ever tried to organize a bazaar and bake table at a church can tell you.

If you're a boy this age, your only thought right now is not "should I?" but "Will I get caught?"

For $100, a man bought a wrecked plane and has turned it into a treehouse. Oak-Kay!

Your breakfast comes with a little added kindness.

I'm not at all sheepish about making the obvious joke!

That dude looks like he's snagging popcorn with his tongue to keep his hands non-buttery. He knows What It Takes to Walk This Way.

If you're into Dungeons and Dragons, this is the garage in Wisconsin where the game was invented, many millions ago.

Don't tell me animals don't smile!

We understand that it is, or at least used to be, a longstanding tradition to have an oil painting portrait of the great people of business, law, commerce, and what-have-you hanging in the very space where once The Great One worked. But this one! I haven't the foggiest who this is. I'm sure his name is something like J. Wellington Turnipbroth, but I have to ask if they couldn't have found a better way to memorialize him than to hang a painting of him saying, "Now see here, Porter..."

A drone's-eye view of trees recently felled by a storm.

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The Kids Are Still Alright

One thing I look forward to every year is the chance to be one of the Experienced People interviewing members of the junior class at my old alma mater and stomping grounds (literally!), Towson High School. 

Every April, every junior prepares a résumé, dresses up as if going to an interview, and reports with their English class to the school library, where they spend 15 minutes or so with one of us, doing a mock interview. Since everyone will be interviewed for something down the line, be it for college admission, military enlistment, or a job, it's best to have a tryout before the real fastballs of life come at you.

I enjoy this every year. With very few exceptions, the students take it very seriously, and do a heck of a job. As someone who still largely clings to his teenaged sensibility, I relate to 17-year-olds, and these folks are at that wonderful age: old enough to drive a car and register to vote, but still young and full of hope, without it being clouded by cynicism. They have the technological advantage of being born with computers and cell phones at their fingertips from the start, and they want to make it a better world. I think they will, if earnestness and sincerity are any indicators.

Tell you the truth, I get a lot out of this annual exercise too. It recharges my belief that the future is very bright, with these guys taking over. This bunch had the COVID awfulness hit them while in 7th grade. Several of them told me they were alone in the house with parents at work and their only connection was their computer, and they did great on their schoolwork because teachers and parents cared enough to keep things reasonably together for them. They've seen sadness and rough times but that teen sheen is still on them, and I hope it never leaves.

Thank you, THS '25!

PS - Speaking to us superannuated types - the school is still full of lockers. The students don't use them! They tote their books and Chromebooks and water bottles and healthy snacks in backpacks just slightly smaller than the ones used for Admiral Byrd's expedition. I wish we had had them!

PSS - There was a certain waxy smell about the library entrance when I first paraded down that hallway in September, 1966. It still smells just the same. I think the school must have purchased a lifetime supply of Johnson's Library Hallway Wax. I'm sure they'll be running out sometime...

 

Burnt

All of a sudden, I hear people talking about the Burnt Toast Theory and I wonder how they knew that I have decided, if I ever get back on the radio, to go by the fake name "Burt Toast." Perfect for a morning deejay, eh?

No, and anyway, they're talking about some sort of Tik-Tok meme about burnt toast, and as a non-Tiky-Toker, I have not seen what they mean, but what I read is that if your toast burns one morning and you have to take time to pop in two more slices of Pepperidge Farm, it might not be the worst thing ever to happen.

I think of the girl who was a year behind me in junior high and high school who, ten years later, was driving down Falls Rd and was hit by a bullet fired by some kids who had found a gun and played with it. The woman was pregnant, and as I recall the story, they saved the baby, but the mom died from the bullet wound, and it led to thinking that if she had been at that exact spot one second earlier or one second later, it would not have happened.

But it did, proving the veracity of Alan Seeger's words about having a rendezvous with death at some disputed barricade.

And on the brighter side, the minutes you spend re-toasting might give you time to think about a new idea for your job, a new way to tell your partner about how deep your love is, a chance to sing "We Want Mine" while the Toastmaster General does its thing... 

Enjoy your extra moments. We all want ours!

Left To Remember

Among my many ( 27 and counting) rituals and daily habits is a nightly half-hour listening to "The Great Gildersleeve" as I perform my nightly ablutions and prepare for another night of golden slumber.

It's an old radio comedy from the 40s and 50s, centered on the antics of a smalltown bachelor water commissioner, his niece and nephew whom he's raising, his cook and housekeeper, his coterie of lady friends, and the members of his social club: the police chief, the town judge, the barber, and the druggist. 

Try it, you might like it. I never try to talk people into hearing it, because it is most definitely not modern or classically witty or cool at all, but I love it because I am none of those myself.

For those who like American History (✋) it's interesting to look at America during the war years. They mention rationing of food and gasoline because they were facts of everyday life. A lot of the shows feature ads for margarine and Velveeta, two food products that came off the bench during the war to fill in for butter and cheese, which were in short supply. The alternative to gasoline, also scarce, was walking to work. Different world.

But while I say it was a different world, and so long ago, I got to thinking about one episode in particular. The show was broadcast live on NBC radio with a studio audience, and if the jokes weren't getting laughs, there was no one to sweeten the sound with more ha ha ha. What was said, and the live audience reaction, was what went over the air.

In the episode I heard the other night, from 1947, there was a man in the audience with one of the most unusual laughs I ever heard...kind of a blend of a bray and a guffaw, like when George W. Bush would chortle, only louder. And what made this man's laugh so noticeable was that many times he was the only person laughing, so you'd hear this "Haw Haw" randomly throughout the show. There was nothing offensive about it, he didn't seem to have ill intent, he just had a nutty laugh, captured on the primitive audio tape of the day.

And I would have to assume that the cracked-up cachinnator has gone to his reward by now, but how interesting that his unique laugh still lives. I tell you, whoever he was, he left his mark in the most natural of ways: just by being himself. 

Swinging Sammy

Let's have a race. I bet that if I give you time enough to assemble the makin's of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (PB, jelly, two pieces of bread) you could make one faster than the time it will take you to read about how you should make more of them and buy fewer Lunchables.

Ready? Go!

I know it's easy (but not cheap at all) to toss a Lunchable snack kit in the kid's lunch box or your own tote or purse. Such variety! Turkey and Cheese and Ham and Some Other Cheese and Pizza and Nachos and Cracker Stackers and Buildable Gumy Candy (don't ask!) !!! 

Sure they are easy, but Consumer Reports wants you to consider two other things they are - high in lead and sodium. Their tests say that various Lunchables and the various imitators have way too much sodium, lots of lead, and high amounts of cadmium, which is a heavy metal you don't want to listen to.

Lunchables Turkey and Cheddar Cracker Stackers have the most, followed by Lunchables Pizza with Pepperoni, Lunchables Extra Cheesy Pizza, and Armour LunchMakers Cracker Crunchers Ham & American.

A good rule of thumb is, the easier a processed food is to plop on a table or toss in a bag, the less healthy it tends to be, so take five minutes, smear a little nutter butter on some 143-grain bread and send the kids off smiling!