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Louie Psihoyos: Oscar for 'The Cove' could save lives of dolphins

William K. Wolfrum — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:02:28 +0000

Louie Psihoyos wants to win an Academy Award. For the Director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “The Cove,” being nominated is great, but when the envelope is opened, he wants to hear his film called out. Mind you, Psihoyos doesn’t much care about the award itself (“I’d probably give it to the crew,” he said.), but he wants what he sees as the biggest benefit an Oscar offers – a massive audience.

“A billion people will see the Academy Awards,” said Psihoyos in a telephone interview. “That’s why I’d like to win. Because for 45 seconds you can talk directly to all the key people who are involved in these policies.”

What Psihoyos wants to talk about is the subject of his highly praised documentary – the wholesale slaughter of Dolphins in Taiji, Japan. But should “The Cove” not win the Oscar for Best Documentary, Psihoyos has already gotten the word out to millions about the formerly secret slaughter. And just this week, it was announced that the film will now be in front of people he knows can make the biggest difference – the people of Japan.

On Feb. 8, The Works International announced that “The Cove” had been acquired by Japanese distributor Medallion Media which is planning a tentative release date of April 2010 in Japan. Carl Clifton, Managing Director of The Works International, applauded Medallion for taking the film directly to the people of Japan.

“Many distributors screened the film and most decided it was simply too hot to handle even if they all felt it must be seen by the Japanese people,” said Clifton in a press release. “Medallion Media has shown real courage in acquiring ‘The Cove’ for Japan and we look forward to working with them on it.”

“The Cove” – which currently has an almost-unheard of 8.5 rating at The Internet Movie Database – highlights the annual, six-month slaughter of dolphins in Taiji. The dolphins are rounded up by fisherman, who use sonar and bang on long poles to frighten and herd the dolphins into a cove. After highly sought-after “show dolphins” – dolphins which will be taken captive and trained at Ocean parks like Sea World – are selected, the dolphins are then herded into a once-secret cove, where they are slaughtered. Each year, more than 20,000 dolphins are killed.

The actual cove where the dolphins are being slaughtered was a long-held secret by the Taiji and Japanese governments. But Psihoyos (“I probably watched too many James Bond movies as a kid,” he laughs”) put together his own “Ocean’s 11″ squad of filmmakers, divers and activists to penetrate the cove under the cover of darkness, hiding cameras and sound equipment throughout the area. The end result was video that is at once educating and blood-curdling.

But despite the video and the film, the killing continues.

“At the beginning of the year they stopped killing bottle-nose dolphins, but they have started the killing again,” said Psihoyos, who started the non-profit Oceanic Preservation Society in 2005.

The film follows former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry, who trained the dolphins in the hit 1960s TV show “Flipper.” O’Barry has long felt a responsibility for the popularity of performing dolphins that took off following the TV Show, and sees his own fingerprints on the slaughter. Now the most prominent and tireless defender of dolphins, “The Cove” highlights his fight to free and save the intelligent mammals.

Aside from being a documentation of atrocities against dolphins, O’Barry’s fight for redemption, and the cloak-and-dagger operation, “The Cove” also showcases a problem for mankind – the massive elevation of mercury in the systems of sea mammals like dolphins and whales. The problem is showcased in Taiji, where the dolphins have been used as a food source, and where authorities attempted to get dolphin meat into schools across the nation.

“The whole town was mandated for being tested for mercury because of this movie,” said Psihoyos, 52. “They found that the males had 20 times more mercury in their blood and the women 10 times more than other Japanese people.”

Psihoyos said that thus far, even with the film, the Japanese government has been of no help to either the dolphins, or their own people.

“They are still in denial. They are still trying to hide behind the old tired excuses that it’s a tradition,” said Psihoyos, who resides in Boulder, Colo. “Well, this ‘tradition’ started in the 1930s. And their tradition is poisoning their own people.”

Which is why getting the movie in front of Japanese audiences is such a coup for the filmmaker. In a time when their government is experiencing the same economic crisis as the rest of the planet, the Japanese government is actually using tax payer money to keep the needless killing of dolphins going.

“If they just enforced their own laws, this problem would end,” said Psihoyos. “The Japanese people need to know they are subsidizing these people.”

Having already scaled the heights with his first film, Psihoyos is now working on what he calls a companion piece for “The Cove,” which will look at the degradation of the world’s ocean by humankind.

“To me we’re it’s like we’re living in a science-fiction nightmare we’re only beginning to understand,” said Psihoyos. “The oceans are getting increasingly acidic, and by the end of this century it will be impossible for coral reefs to even exist.”

But despite the harrowing subject matter, Psihoyos takes to his burgeoning film making and activism career with optimism. He can see things turning around with a new generation of Americans.

“I have an extreme amount of hope with the kids. They can read through the BS and see we’re destroying the environment,” said Psihoyos. “We’ve signed up nearly 1 million people already to help with this. I know people are getting engaged by this movie.”

So come Oscar night, Psihoyos will be in the audience, hoping to receive the Oscar for Best Documentary. But that won’t be the true prize he’s after.

“We’ve won a lot of awards. But I didn’t get in the business of making films to win awards. The real awards are to solve these problems,” said Psihoyos.

Additional Reading

–WKW

Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

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Tea Partiers: Feel like you've lost your country? I just bought you a new one in Latvia

William K. Wolfrum — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:30:20 +0000

Dear Tea Partiers,

For a long, long time now, I’ve been hearing American Patriots going on and on about how they’ve lost their country. And by “long, long time” I mean “since Barack Obama was elected President.” And by “going on and on” I mean, “freaking out about Barack Obama being elected President.” But this is neither here nor there.

What’s important is that you are unhappy. You’ve lost faith in American democracy, as one of your own, Tom Tancredo, has made perfectly clear. You talk sedition and secession as if it’s a ballgame. You feel you have lost your country and you want it back.

And we all know that’s not going to happen any time soon, as face it, there’s maybe 50,000 of you in the whole country, and your leaders are about to sell you out to the Republicans anyway.

But all is not lost, my dear Tea Partiers. There is a future for you. A future of freedom and self-determination. A place you can make a new start. A place where your dreams can come true.

I speak, of course, of Latvia.

You see, as we speak, there’s a town in Latvia that’s just sitting there. And it can be yours. All yours. The town is called Skrunda-1. It is a former top-secret military base that is now a ghost town. And yesterday, I bought it. And I bought it for you.

Here’s what the town includes:

5 million square feet of land
10 apartment buildings
Two nightclubs
A shopping center
A child care center
A sauna
A wide variety of abandoned military buildings.

Want me to sweeten the pot even further? Here’s what Latvians look like:

As you can see, this is a town with the complexion to make all your dreams come true.

Now, yes, I know there have been reports that the town was actually sold to a Russian. But that’s just a cover. The Russian is my real-estate guy. I bought it. And I want you to live there, rent free.

So, my Tea Partying friends, run, don’t walk to the nearest International Airport, buy a one-way ticket to Latvia, and you will have the freedom and acceptance that you’ve always dreamed of. There you can grab that freedom with your ink-stained hands and live in the type of society you’ve always wanted. And trust me, the Latvian government won’t bother you a bit. You’ve already got a hell of a lot more guns than they do, after all.

It’s time for you to stop talking about founding fathers and start being founding fathers. Yes, my friends, you finally have your country back. And it’s in Latvia. Now get going. And don’t forget your guns.

Hugs,

Bill

–WKW

Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

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College Football: Stranger than Fiction

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:24:24 +0000

From Inside Higher Ed:

Southern Cal Signs 13-Year-Old Quarterback

Need more evidence of the disconnect between big-time college sports and the institutions to which they are appended? The University of Southern California's football team has committed one of its football scholarships for the 2015 entering class to David Sills, a 13-year-old quarterback at a middle school in Delaware, The News-Journal of Wilmington reported. Lane Kiffin, the new coach at Southern Cal, made a similar signing of a 13-year-old last year when he was at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and that player is presumably out of luck now that Kiffin has moved on to USC. Sills told ESPN that Southern Cal has always been his "dream school." Reports that USC's admissions office is offering slots in its 2015 undergraduate class to several very talented middle school mathematicians are false.

And no, this is not one of Wolfie's posts. Reality (or reality as understood by NCAA Division I) is apparently after Wolfie's market share.

I really have nothing to add except that I deeply admire the snark of that last paragraph and that it is illegal to hold anyone to a contract that they signed when they were thirteen.

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Pedestrian accidentally filibusters all bills in Senate, blocks all Obama appointments

William K. Wolfrum — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:35:14 +0000

WASHINGTON – Timothy Johnson was taking a walk near his home in Washington, D.C., when he walked near Capitol Hill. Noticing his shoe was untied, Johnson bent to tie it. Then all hell broke loose, as his actions somehow filibustered every bill currently in Congress, as well as placed holds all of President Barack Obama’s nominations for government positions.

“That was me?” said Johnson. “Eek. I’m really sorry about that.”

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said that Johnson’s shoe-tying action kicked in a rare congressional rule. While Reid declined to explain how one seemingly powerless pedestrian could stop the U.S. Government in its tracks, he said he was powerless to stop it.

“My hands are tied,” said Reid. “We’ll just have to wait this out.”

Reid added that Senate Democrats could offer Johnson a $40-billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers, in an effort to get him to release the holds and end the filibusters.

“We’re hoping that we can bribe him to stop this overt act of obstructionism,” said Reid. “But really, Timothy Johnson is holding all the cards.”

For his part, the 34-year-old Johnson – who works part-time at a local Walmart, said he was willing to negotiate.

“I really don’t know much about refueling tankers, but I’m willing to try,” said Johnson. “Do they have any special classes for that.”

The House and Senate are now currently on recess, raising funds and golfing while they wait for the situation to resolve.

“Once again, there’s nothing we can do. The government is in Timothy Johnson’s hands now,” said Reid. “He’s the one making the rules now, and we better learn to just accept that.”

–WKW

Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

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A Jack Johnson pardon awaits only a signature from Barack Obama

William K. Wolfrum — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:16:58 +0000

It seems the moment that Barack Obama took over the Presidency of the United States, his overall message changed. “Change We Can Believe in” morphed into “Bipartisanship: Now and Forever.” Like Bill Clinton before him, the need for Republican acceptance has become a an almost fetish for Obama, with the results thus far quite predictable – the U.S. government is now radically partisan.

Of course, there’s one thing Obama could do – today – that would briefly appease some of his most vociferous critics. That would be to pardon Jack Johnson.

Jack Johnson was the first African-American Heavyweight champion. And despite having not thrown a punch in anger in more than 70 years, and having been dead for more than 60 years, many still consider him the greatest boxer in history.

As one can imagine, being the first Black Heavyweight champion – he won the title in 1908 – led to Johnson being the most reviled figure of his time. A surge of racism ran through the blood of even the most prominent writers and politicians of the day, and a concerted effort was made to take him down. To White America, the flashy and cocky Johnson needed to be shown his place.

Unable to find a white man to beat Johnson in the ring, they used the legal system to take him down. In 1912, Johnson was first arrested for a violation of the odious Mann Act. Unable to secure a conviction, he was then again arrested in 1913 for the same offense. The offenses? “Transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes.” Johnson knew both women well. The “crimes” he committed actually took place before the Mann Act had been ratified. But the U.S. judicial system did what no white boxer could do. They beat Jack Johnson, sentencing him to a year and a day in Federal prison.

Simply put, Jack Johnson had been convicted for being an unapologetic Black man.

Johnson fled the country, eventually losing his title to Jess Willard in 1915. Johnson finally returned to the U.S. in 1920, and served his sentence in Leavenworth. It is long past time for that sentence to be stricken from his record.

Jack Johnson does not deserve to be pardoned for being a good man. He was, in fact, a bad man in many aspects, with the onus of that description being his violence and abuse of women. But this is not about Johnson’s other sins.

Jack Johnson does not deserve to be pardoned because it’s African-American History Month. That is but an intangible moment of time.

Jack Johnson does not deserve to be pardoned because Barack Obama is the first African-American to serve as President. That is ridiculousness.

Jack Johnson deserves to be pardoned because he was arrested and tormented by the U.S. government solely because he was a Black man. His story is by no means unique. But his prominence and historical importance makes his story stand out and helps us all recognize the blatant crimes committed against African-Americans by America’s judicial system. His arrest – like many so many others – was purely racially motivated.

Both the House and Senate have demanded that Johnson be pardoned. The bill is on President Obama’s desk. But he won’t sign it. Because the Justice Department said it prefers to focus its pardon resources on people “who can truly benefit” from them.

“In terms of Jack Johnson, I think the Department of Justice came back recommending — not recommending a pardon on that,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

The resolution Congress passed to pardon Johnson said in part that it was “for the racially motivated conviction in 1913 that diminished the athletic, cultural, and historic significance of Jack Johnson and unduly tarnished his reputation … [It would] expunge a racially motivated abuse of the prosecutorial authority of the federal government from the annals of criminal justice in the United States.”

It is long past time to pardon Jack Johnson. The posthumous pardon has bi-partisan support, as Sen. John McCain and Rep. Peter King – Republicans both – are among those that have championed his cause.

But Jack Johnson should not be pardoned because it achieves some type of non-partisan unity. He should be pardoned because he was imprisoned for being a Black man. He should be pardoned because it would truly benefit us all.

–WKW

Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

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Tebow Superbowl Ad: A Lot of Money for a lot of Fluff

Orlando — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 04:43:28 +0000

Focus on the Family paid how much for this ad?

It's clear after watching the ad that what they paid for was the controversy surrounding the ad. Now they can say, "Look, we just love our children. Those godless feminists are so unhinged that they freak out over some happy music and a warm hug between mother and son."

Mission accomplished. I hope the money was worth it.

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Why Are Liberals So Condescending?

Genghis — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:14:41 +0000

Dear Mr. Alexander,

Thank you for your important and original editorial, "Why are liberals so condescending?" I had no idea that I been guilty of employing tired and contemptuous stereotypes of my conservative brethren. I realize now that my partisan arrogance has limited "our national conservation on critical policy issues" and that if I and my fellow liberals had just been a little more charitable towards conservative sensibilities, the Republicans would be working with us to move the nation forward in harmony instead of being forced to filibuster every bill, nomination, and procedural motion on the Senate floor. All I can say is that I'm sorry, and I will try to be better.

Since your essay explained the many ways in which liberals are condescending but didn't actually answer your own question, I'd like to help by explaining why we liberals are so arrogant.

We're not really bad people, but our feelings have been hurt too. I wish that all conservatives were reasonable people like you who offer helpful constructive criticism. But I've been hearing so much lately about how evil I am and how I hate the Constitution, it's hard not to take it personally. I know that you said Glenn Beck is just "a marginal figure and a media gadfly," and I keep reminding myself of that, but he's sold millions and millions of books, which is way more than any of the liberal writers that you cited. I don't think many people have heard of Thomas Frank, the Edsalls, or even (no offense) Alexander Gerard, but Glenn Beck is everywhere.

Still, I know that Beck doesn't speak for most conservatives. In your editorial, you mentioned a poll by Markos Moulitsas which shows that only 23% of Republicans believe that their states should secede from the Union. That doesn't seem like too many. But you know, I looked at the survey, and it also shows 63% of Republicans think that Obama is a socialist. They probably mean that in a good way, but it just seems like a lot. And it makes me wonder, with no disrespect, how well most Republicans understand socialism.

But I'll try to forget about Glenn Beck. He's just one guy. There are probably many other bestselling conservative books that are far more positive about liberalism. Like Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies and Dick Morris's Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress, and the Special Interests are Transforming. . .A Downturn into a Crash, a Recession into a Depression, and a Disaster into a CATASTROPHE . . and How to Stop Them and Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and their Assault on America and Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change.

I'm sure that you're familiar with all these books. You probably also read Coulter's: Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right when it came out 8 years ago. She wrote that "the more Conservative the Republican, the more vicious and hysterical the attacks on his intelligence will be." That's sort of close to the point of your editorial, isn't it? She also wrote that "much of the left's hate speech bears greater similarity to a psychological disorder than to standard political discourse." I have to confess that these words sound a little condescending.

But I'm sure that hardly anyone reads Ann Coulter and those other people. And anyway, Republican politicians are much more reasonable and open to liberal ideas. For instance, George W. Bush always consulted Democrats about their concerns. But it did bother me a little when Dick Cheney suggested that Democrats "are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States" and when Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said that Obama "is obsessed with turning terrorists loose in America."

I also thought that Tom DeLay was slightly disdainful when he wrote that "liberals have finally joined the ranks of scoundrels like Hitler." But most Republicans don't go that far. I believe Rep. Paul Brown (R-GA) when he said that he wasn't comparing Obama to Adolf Hitler, though it was weird when he added, "What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road." I wonder if he talked to Rep. Steve King (R-IA) because he suggested that we might "end up in a totalitarian dictatorship." Could that be why Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) called Obama "an enemy of humanity?"

Anyway, shame on Thomas Frank for writing that working-class Republican Kansans care more about abortion than their own economic interests. Who does that guy think he is? I was so disgusted by his condescension that I re-read part of his book. I'm sure that you remember the bit about conservatives' propensity to "take offense, conspicuously, vocally, even flamboyantly" and how they complain that "the virtuous are persecuted by the 'sanctimonious,' by the arrogant, by the falsely pious, by the corrupt" and the part where he writes, "Everything seems to piss conservatives off, and they react by documenting and cataloging their disgust."

Had Frank read your brilliant editorial, I'm sure that he would never have written such nonsense.

Sincerely,
Genghis

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E-mails reveal Piper Palin ran Alaska in 2008

William K. Wolfrum — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:36:44 +0000

ANCHORAGE - Recently released e-mails by the Alaska State Government showed that Sarah Palin’s youngest daughter Piper, then 7, handled most of Alaska’s State business in 2008.

“If I don’t get a happy meal, heads are going to roll,” thundered Piper in an e-mail to then-Lt. Governor Sean Parnell in March. “And the toy better not be doodie!”

Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Piper Palin exchanged with state officials, which were released to msnbc.com and NBC News by the state of Alaska under its public records law, draw a picture of a Palin administration where the governor’s young daughter got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments and passed financial information marked “confidential” from her father’s oil company employer to a state attorney.

Then the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin was tabbed to be John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 Presidential Election in October. Nonetheless, the precocious child held incredible sway in the Alaska government throughout the year, notably when she made sure that her “Mommy & First Dude” didn’t have to pay taxes at a vacation lodge the family owns in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough of Alaska.

“If we pay one cent. One cent in taxes, I will poop myself,” Piper Palin wrote to the family attorney from her Yahoo e-mail account – Barracuda2@yahoo.com. “Do you hear me Poop!”

While many political observers question whether it was proper for a child to have such power in the oil-rich state, one anonymous Republican said that it was normal operating procedure.

“Few people are aware that Rudy Giuliani let Andrew run New York City for most of 1990,” said the source. “The kid was like 5, and let me tell you, the doodie flew.”

--WKW

Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

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Karl Rove to star in “The Bachelor”

William K. Wolfrum — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:11:53 +0000

59-year-old Karl Rove is out to prove to the world that nice guys finish last and that evil douchebags finish in love. Tighten your security and prepare to be politically mauled as this Republican Political Operative is ready to trash reputations and destroy lives as the Bachelor.

Known as “Turdblossom” to his friends and “Asshole” to everyone else, Karl Rove grew up in Sparks, Nevada and attended the University of Utah. He discovered his passion for destroying his political opposition early, as he started his political career in high school. As an accomplished plotter, he became part of the Republican Party at the age of 19. In his free time, he has fun torturing kittens and finding new ways to oppress minorities.

Now, if you’re thinking this guy looks familiar, you’d be right. Ever since Karl shared a magical date with The Decider, George W. Bush, millions of Conservatives have had their own low-down, disturbing fantasies about him. Basically a demon in human form with a strong reputation as a dishonest creep with the heart of Gorgon bile, fans weren’t stunned in the least when he joined the propaganda arm of the GOP, Fox News.

Requests for him to be the next Bachelor didn’t come in, at all. But he has incriminatory pictures of top executives at the network, so here we are. Karl, who believes marriage is a sacred institution, is coming off the fairytale experience of his second divorce. This divorce gave him motivation to continue his search for love on The Bachelor. Only this time, it’s his turn to call the shots.

Karl longs to find that special someone who is vapid, moronic, mentally unstable and doesn’t shave. He wants someone who he can take to parties and who doesn’t think much. He also admits that he can’t wait for his third marriage – and divorce. To make things even more exciting and to take advantage of Conservatives’ notoriously loose morals, this year many of the Bachelorettes will already be married. This promises to be one of the most exciting and horrifyingly disturbing seasons ever!

Will Karl slither off into the underbrush with one of the Bachelorettes waiting in a pile of excement? One thing we know for sure is that there will be 25 candidates and at least 24 horrifyingly defeated and besmirched losers once the 15th edition of The Bachelor takes to the air on Monday, July 4, 2010 on ABC!

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Why College Football Playoffs Are Wrong

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:21:16 +0000

So a lot of people, including the President, have been talking lately about remedying the evils of college football. The chief evil that needs remedying is apparently the Bowl Championship System, which isn't enough of a "real" championship and needs to be replaced with a system of playoffs. That's a big surprise to me, because I can think of a lot of other problems with big-time college football, and instituting playoffs would probably make them worse.

Just to face some basic facts: there is only so much full-speed, seriously competitive football that the human body can take. If you want to play two-handed touch on your lawn every day, that will work. If you're practicing with a team, practice can happen most days (although the coaches will build in some lower-impact days, and some rest). But actually playing, in the big time, is another thing. The question of how much football one man can take is answered, more or less, by the NFL's schedule: 16 games in 17 weeks. 16 games a season is a pretty low number, and if that's all the owners schedule, it's not because tradition matters more to them than money. It's because that's all the competitive football even the best, most elite professional players can really take.

Professional baseball players can play ten times as many games a season than NFL players do, and NBA basketball players can play five times as many games, because those sports don't beat up the athletes' body in the same way. If the NFL season were longer, or the games were more frequent, you would eventually see too many players getting injured ("too many" meaning in this case too many for the game to be fun) or the quality of play weakened to help players survive. (If the NFL had to play three games a week, you'd see a much, much less physical game.) Football is the most physically demanding and punishing team sport. The only harsher sports are individual sports, like boxing and the marathon, where serious athletes can't even compete once a week.

Now, the Bowl Championship Division Series is already close to full professional length, between twelve and thirteen regular-season games compared to the NFL's sixteen. That makes sense, considering that BCS college football functions, basically, as a minor league for the NFL. Players get accustomed to a longer and more intense schedule than they did as high school players, but not as long or intense as the pro schedule. That's necessary, as the players build up their conditioning, strengthen their still-developing bodies, and learn to play the game at a newer, harder level. So the current system is probably a pretty decent level of intensity, and the Bowl system, where there's a one-game postseason for a lot of teams, isn't so terrible.

But if you add, say, a three-round playoff to the college schedule (and if a playoff system starts there will outraged demands for more than three rounds), you're looking at college players playing something pretty close to the full NFL schedule. And that's going to mean injuries: more injuries, and worse injuries, including some career-enders. A kid who's trying to compete for the big time at the same time he's making the adjustment from an 10- or 11-game high school season to what's basically a fifteen-game Div I season is going to get hurt. The question is how much. The extended postseason, where you've got a lot of young and inexperienced players who are worn down by the long season but trying to redouble their efforts for the "meaningful games" is pretty much a recipe for some serious, serious damage. Will every player get hurt badly? No. Some will be lucky, and get only the routine injuries that football players routinely conceal. But plenty of people will get hurt worse than that, needlessly, and players who could have gone on to big things will end up out of the game for good.

A full NCAA football season is about as much as you can ask. Really. A full season plus two or three playoff games is a lot more than you can ask of a kid who isn't being paid. If it's "wrong" to not have a "real" championship, it's also wrong to ask a kid to risk his body and his future for free, just to please ESPN and the Vegas lines. Yeah, yeah, the kids get paid with an education. Sure. But adding another three- or five-week playoff season, right into the spring semester, pretty much goes to show what a sorry pretense that is. If this were about educating kids for something beside football, we wouldn't be talking about playoffs at all. And yeah, kids play Div I ball for their shot at the NFL. But extending seasons for players who aren't ready for that punishment yet means risking those players' shot at making the NFL, ever. They only make that pro money if they excel and stay healthy. If they get hurt (or need to play more cautiously to keep from getting hurt), they get nothing. And that's not just "wrong" the way an imperfectly-satisfying-television-spectacle is "wrong." It's simply wrong: a selfish, vicious, rotten-hearted thing to do to another person.

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dagblog.com

Louie Psihoyos: Oscar for 'The Cove' could save lives of dolphins

More on The Cove

Additional Reading

Tea Partiers: Feel like you've lost your country? I just bought you a new one in Latvia

College Football: Stranger than Fiction

From Inside Higher Ed:

Southern Cal Signs 13-Year-Old Quarterback

Pedestrian accidentally filibusters all bills in Senate, blocks all Obama appointments

A Jack Johnson pardon awaits only a signature from Barack Obama

Tebow Superbowl Ad: A Lot of Money for a lot of Fluff

Why Are Liberals So Condescending?

E-mails reveal Piper Palin ran Alaska in 2008

Karl Rove to star in “The Bachelor”

Why College Football Playoffs Are Wrong