The daily Astorian., January 14, 2015, Image 6

OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2015
D AILY A STORIAN College Moneyball: The big winners
T HE
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
SAMANTHA MCLAREN, Circulation Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2005
Residents repeated strong concerns about the safety, security and econom-
gas receiving terminal in Warrenton Friday after a meeting of the Skipanon
Natural Gas Facility project advisory committee was adjourned, and asked
why committee members did not have answers to their questions.
The Flavels have their buildings back.
On Monday Harry and Mary Louise Flavel bought back the
second of two downtown Commercial Street properties that were
auctioned off last year to satisfy a legal judgment.
The reclusive brother and sister paid $108,000 to the Clatsop
northeast corner of Ninth and Commercial streets that was sold at
auction in July to Jim Neikes.
An Astoria High School student allegedly phoned Yamhill-Carton High
School on Jan. 4 with a bomb threat, hoping the school would cancel a girls
basketball game with Astoria High School scheduled for that day.
His girlfriend plays on the Astoria team, and he didn’t want her to travel
to Yamhill because of bad weather, said Yamhill Police Chief Gordon Rise.
-
ing built along the Columbia River were debated at the second
River Vision community meeting, where attendees also heard an
update on the Port Westward facility and a primer on the geology
of the Skipanon Peninsula.
More than 75 people packed into the Flag Room of the Astor
Public Library for Wednesday evening’s meeting.
50 years ago — 1965
Outgoing Gov. Albert Roselini of Washington has proposed to the leg-
islature that it create a state canal commission primarily to work on the pro-
jected Puget Sound-Grays Harbor-Willapa Bay-Columbia River canal, the
Longview News reports.
“While there are some persons with doubts concerning the economic value
region,” the News comments. “Interim studies of his project are under way and
certainly merit serious consideration by the legislators and new governor.”
We agree, and believe that federal help should be provided for the project,
which is obviously of more than statewide importance.
This canal has long been a dream of some people in this area who consider
its construction quite practical by taking advantage of existing waterways and
low-lying land connecting the Columbia with Willapa and Grays Harbors.
The greatest economic value of such a canal would be from the growing
numbers of recreational boaters, we believe. The Columbia River and Puget
increased usage from a connecting canal.
Gov. Rosellini deserves commendation for pushing this project even
The Astoria High symphonic band, directed by Ted Marshall,
has for the second time in four years been invited to perform at
the northwest division meeting of the Music Educators’ National
conference, to be held in Portland the last week in March.
This is one of the highest honors offered to any high school
group in the northwest.
-
day disclosed the year was a banner one as tonnage jumped by 25 percent over
WASHINGTON – Senate Interior Committee Chairman
Henry M. Jackson, D-Wash., said today he was still “unalterably
opposed” to any proposal to slake the growing thirst of Southern
California and Arizona with water from the Columbia River.
75 years ago — 1940
Ending her four-day visit in the Columbia and Willamette rivers, the latest
this afternoon, like a gigantic eel. She passed under St. John’s bridge in Port-
Supported by the Clatsop court and the Astoria Chamber of
Commerce, a delegation of Nehalem Valley citizens is appearing
before the state highway commission today to ask that the Jew-
ell-Elsie road be made a part of the state secondary highway
system. The road from Astoria to Jewell is already a secondary
highway and, by the state taking over the sector of county road be-
tween Jewell and Elsie, there would be a continuous state highway
to the Wolf Creek route.
A naval bombing plane, on unannounced mission, visited the lower Co-
lumbia today and was believed possibly engaged in calibrating the compass
o’clock.
The plane was seen to dip low over Tongue Point basin, but workers at the
Naval Air Station site could not tell through the mist whether the plane had
landed there or not.
Neither the naval radio station nor coast guard authorities had any infor-
mation on the plane’s mission.
WASHINGTON Great Britain is following an underlying pol-
icy of seeking to draw the United States into the war on the side of
the allies, Senator William E. Borah, R. Idaho, asserted today in
discussing recent speeches of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
and the British ambassador to the United States.
By JOE NOCERA
New York Times News Service
I
know who the winners
are in this first ever “true”
national championship college
football game.
ESPN, which bought the rights
to the four-team College Football
is a winner.
The
two
bowl games in
the first round
of the playoffs,
which
were
played on New
Year’s
Day,
were the two
highest-rated
shows in the
history of ca-
ble television.
For Monday
night’s cham-
AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez
Joe
Nocera
Lady Antebellum sings the national anthem before the NCAA college
football playoff championship game between Ohio State and Oregon
Monday in Arlington, Texas.
they weren’t getting any of it. Bill
Plaschke, the longtime sports col-
umnist for The Los Angeles Times,
wrote afterward that the playoff
system had changed his view that
a college education was reward
enough for college athletes. He de-
scribed media day as “the day col-
lege football officially turned pro,”
and he added that it “truly seems
ridiculous that the players are not
sharing even a small piece of this
value they create.”
Paradoxically, this emphasis
on money-above-all-else, while
creating unimaginable riches for
the people who administer college
sports, has also created a sense of
crisis. Idealistic reformers are call-
ing for universities to re-emphasize
education. These reformers appear
to have the ear of the White House.
(Arne Duncan, the secretary of ed-
ucation, who played basketball at
we want to make sure the players
don’t get theirs.
The five “power conferences”
The central conundrum is that
universities are simply not built to
are winners. For years, they resist-
run a multibillion-dollar entertain-
ed a college football playoff, partly
ment industry. The only way they
because they feared it would lessen
can do it is by looking the other
the importance of the regular sea-
way at certain practices, and mak-
son. It is already obvious that the
ing allowances for good athletes
College Football Playoff has made
who don’t care much about college
this season more exciting and — to
itself. One of the reasons I advo-
sweeten the deal — far more lucra-
cate paying football and men’s
tive, netting each conference some
basketball players is that it would
at least ensure that they got some-
The coaches for the two teams
thing for their efforts.
-
The starting quarterback for
frich, who makes $2 million a year,
Ohio State in Monday night’s
championship game was Cardale
Jones. He would seem to be exactly
his Ducks had won. Ohio State’s
the kind of athlete that the college
Urban Meyer, who makes $4.5 mil-
sports industrial complex points to
lion a year, got a big bonus just for
when it talks about how a college
making the four-team playoff. Phil
scholarship can help a “student
Knight, the co-founder of Nike, is
athlete” better his life.
a winner. Both Ohio State and Or-
Cardale, a sophomore at Ohio
egon wear Nike gear. Plus, Knight
There is talk of a presidential com- State, grew up in a rough neighbor-
hood in Cleveland, the youngest
over the years ensuring that his mission on college sports.
of six children raised by
beloved Ducks — he’s an
a single mother. Until re-
Oregon native — have the
There has never been an event
cently, he was the team’s
best of everything. The
third-string quarterback;
game Monday night was
quite so nakedly about money
indeed, the only reason
his reward.
was getting to starting
In the long march to
as the College Football Playoff. he
the game was because the
maximize revenue in
two quarterbacks in front
college sports, there has
never been an event quite so na-
Meanwhile, USA Today reports of him were hurt. Unlikely to have
kedly about money as the College that the conference commission- a pro career, you’d think he would
Football Playoff. Even the March ers, and other members of the embrace the opportunity to get a
Madness basketball championship college sports industrial complex, free education.
Yet a few years ago, Jones
tournament, which nets the NCAA have formed a group called the
Coalition to Save College Sports. tweeted, “Why should we have to
a certain charm that arises from Its goal is to get out the message go to class if we came here to play
those inevitable, and wonderful, that college athletes already have FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to
early-round upsets.
a good deal — without compensa- play SCHOOL classes are POINT-
On media day — yes, the Col- tion. “Thanks to the way college LESS.”
That is the circle that can’t
lege Football Playoff held a media sports are run,” their leaders wrote
day, just like the pros do in advance in an email, “student-athletes gain be squared, no matter how many
of the Super Bowl — several play- an education, learn skills, and have presidential commissions — or
ers noted all the money swirling opportunities in life.” In other coalitions to save college sports
around them, and wondered why words, now that we’ve gotten ours, — try.
The child in the basement
others are content merely
ery might produce a large
good. It is wrong to kill
to know it is there. They
a person for his organs,
all know it has to be there.
even if many lives might
aybe you’re familiar with Some of them understand
be saved.
why,
and
some
do
not,
but
Ursula Le Guin’s short
And yet we don’t ac-
they all understand that
story, “The Ones Who Walk their happiness, the beauty
tually live according to
Away from Omelas.”
that moral imperative.
of their city, the tender-
It’s about a sweet and peaceful ness of their friendships,
trade-offs. In many dif-
city with lovely parks and delightful the health of their children
David
ferent venues, the suffer-
...
depend
wholly
on
this
music.
Brooks
child’s abominable mis-
The people in the city are genu- ery.”
by those trying to deliver
the greatest good for the
inely happy. They enjoy their hand-
That is the social con-
tract in Omelas. One child suffers greatest number.
Companies succeed because they
farmers’ market.
horribly so that the rest can be hap-
Le Guin describes a festival day py. If the child were let free or com-
with delicious beer and horse rac- forted, Omelas would be destroyed. depends on them. Schools become
Most people feel horrible for the prestigious because they reject peo-
child, and some parents hold their ple — even if they put a lifetime of
a basket, and tall young men wear kids tighter, and then they return to work into their application. Leaders
-
their happiness.
child of nine or ten sits at the edge of
But some go to see the child in ly kill innocents. These are children
the crowd, alone, playing on a wood- the room and then keep walking. in the basement of our survival and
They don’t want to be part of that happiness.
The story compels readers to ask
It is an idyllic, magical place.
social contract. “They leave Omelas;
But then Le Guin describes one they walk ahead into the darkness if they are willing to live according
to those contracts. Some are not.
more feature of Omelas. In the base- and they do not come back.”
ment of one of the buildings, there
In one reading this is a parable They walk away from prosperity,
is a small broom-closet-sized room about exploitation. According to and they make some radical com-
with a locked door and no windows. this reading, many of us live in so- mitment. They would rather work
A small child is locked inside the cieties whose prosperity depends toward some inner purity.
The rest of us live with the trade-
on some faraway child
but, actually, the child is
in the basement. When offs. The story reminds us of the in-
Life is
-
we buy a cellphone or a ner numbing this creates. The people
minded. Perhaps it was
piece of cheap clothing, who stay in Omelas aren’t bad; they
born defective, or per-
there is some exploited
haps it has become imbe-
worker — a child in the with the misery they depend upon.
tragic
cile through fear, malnu-
basement. We tolerate I’ve found that this story rivets peo-
trition and neglect.”
trade-offs. exploitation, telling each ple because it confronts them with
Occasionally, the door
other that their misery is all the tragic compromises built into
opens and people look in.
necessary for overall af- modern life — all the children in the
basements — and, at the same time,
The child used to cry out, “Please
let me out. I will be good!” But the
In another reading, the story is a it elicits some desire to struggle
people never answered and now the challenge to the utilitarian mindset against bland acceptance of it all.
In another reading, the whole city
child just whimpers. It is terribly so prevalent today.
thin, lives on a half-bowl of corn-
In theory, most of us subscribe of Omelas is just different pieces of
meal a day and must sit in its own to a set of values based on the idea one person’s psychology, a person
excrement.
that a human being is an end not a living in the busy modern world,
and that person’s idealism and mor-
“They all know it is there, all the
people of Omelas,” Le Guin writes. human being as an object. It is wrong al sensitivity is the shriveling child
“Some of them have come to see it; to enslave a person, even if that slav- locked in the basement.
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
M