Email letters, June 4, 2012

By Staff
Monday, June 4, 2012

San Jac players should be drug-tested, college president should apologize

While the Reivers celebrated their championship, many of us witnessed an unbelievable episode of not just bad, but hideous behavior at the end of the championship game when a San Jacinto player physically went after the home plate umpire. The resulting chorus of loud boos was clearly heard on the live radio telecast but was not commented on by the announcers.

I personally witnessed a number of other incidents from this same hothead and several other San Jac players during the tournament, at least one of which resulted in an ejection. Immediately after the incident, some folks near me commented, “It’s too bad one player can ruin it for the whole team.”

No, it’s not one just one player. When San Jac players win, they are great sports. When they lose, or things don’t go their way, they are part of an ugly team. This is about leadership, pure and simple. And it behooves us all to place the blame squarely where it belongs—on the head coach and staff that promote these attitudes of entitlement and the school system that tolerates it for the sake of winning.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve cheered for San Jac, as I and most other fans do for every team. No more—the fans do not deserve this. While other teams take great pride in setting a wonderful example for Grand Junction’s youth, with San Jac it’s all about them, not the game, not the history and certainly not the sportsmanship inherent in “America’s pastime.”

I suggest it’s time to make an example out of any team that promotes or tolerates this behavior, as it demeans and degrades every team in the tournament.

Most, if not all others, are wonderful examples of the best of America’s youth, and they deserve the highest accolades for their sportsmanship. The noteworthy interaction of most teams with the fans, especially the youngsters, is something to behold and may be unique to this tournament and this venue. It must be preserved.

Therefore, we need to penalize rude and inappropriate behavior, be it a warning or suspension of both the guilty players and/or the school. Unfortunately (and I hope it never comes to this), we may need a code of ethics and personal behavior.

At the very least, the fans, our city, the GJ baseball committee, JUCO and all the participating teams deserve an immediate personal apology from the president of San Jacinto North College.

In closing, let me suggest a drug test for the offending San Jac players. The rage and anger they displayed are not normal, but instead indicative of steroid overload.

JOHN KIRBY
Captain, USN, Ret.
Grand Junction

Romney’s Bain Capital experience shows he was ‘welfare king’

Contrary to the “conventional wisdom” espoused by the Sentinel’s editors (“It’s not the ‘Bain’ of our economy” published May 31) Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s business bona fides at Bain Capital constitute dubious credentials for the job of president.

In fact, Romney was a “welfare king”—the beneficiary of substantial “corporate welfare” indirectly redistributed to Bain Capital through a distorted and unfair tax code, but all in the name of mythological “free enterprise.”

Thus, when Bain Capital’s infusion of private equity into a marginal or failing business allowed that endeavor to survive, Romney justifiably made money.

However, if that business failed, Bain Capital did not lose its investors’ money (as one would rightly expect in the context of true “capitalism”), but rather made money – by legally absconding with the business’s cash reserves and pension funds.

Consequently, taxpayers picked up the tab for the unemployment benefits payable to the hundreds (if not thousands) of former employees who had lost their jobs, for the Food Stamps for which many of those now newly jobless workers became eligible, and for the emergency room visits and other medical expenses incurred by families who had lost their medical insurance – thanks to Bain Capital’s involvement.

Economists call this “externalizing” the true costs of an economic endeavor.  In other words, while a capitalist enterprise reaps the profits of its “entrepreneurship” (while avoiding as many taxes as possible), it foists many of its “costs of doing business” onto society (taxpayers).

Thus, business corporations and their executives reap disproportionate benefits by operating in a free society under the protection of taxpayer-funded courts.  If corporations and the “1%” all paid their commensurately fair share of taxes (and did not also receive gratuitous corporate “welfare”), the burden of “free enterprise” would not fall so heavily on the “middle class.”

BILL HUGENBERG
Grand Junction

Romney’s economic plan would drive most Americans into underclass

Mitt Romney’s economic plan for the United States is driven by forcing the majority of Americans to work as the underclass poor. They must work cheaply such as the poor employees of Staples, Sports Authority and Domino’s Pizza (Romney centerpiece of success) with no representation or political power.

If you don’t believe me, just ask the poor folks that work at Staples, Sports Authority and Domino’s Pizza what their incomes are, if they can afford to buy a house, if they have health care coverage, if they have any worthwhile benefits, or if they have a future.
Romney’s plan will destroy the right to organize of our police officers, firefighters and teachers. They will have their jobs cut back and leave the poor and the middle class unprotected. More of Romney’s economic plan is to end Social Security and Medicare and to close all public schools. He will end all taxes for his wealthy friends and corporations. Thanks should go to the right-wing Supreme Court decision that declared corporations to be people.

In the words of the great Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, “We can have a democratic society or we can have great concentrated wealth in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.”

LEON RODRIGUEZ
Denver