The Death of a High School Football Player

My old stomping grounds of Northeast Kansas have been a brutal place to play high school football this fall. Last a night Spring Hill High School football player died:

"A woman who says her son plays on the Osawatamie team told KSHB that she saw Nathan Stiles intercept an Osawatamie pass and get hit on the play. Her husband, who was standing on the sidelines, says he saw Nathan walk to the sidelines and collapse."

Earlier in the season, a McLouth High School player lost part of his leg after suffering a compound fracture during a game.

I don't know. Maybe teen boys are so full of testosterone that they'll beat the crap out of each other no matter what. But, as I've noted before: Football is a game of violence. It's disturbing to see it kill and maim our young men. Is there any kind of moral upside to the game?

Barack Obama's 'Dude' Moment

Jonathan Chait:

"On the contrary, I think the office of the president has too much dignity. The president is a citizen who serves the public. It is in the interest of the president to make himself into something exalted, a national father figure and symbol of the government. But the public has no interest in this function, which, indeed, can take on monarchical trappings with an insidious anti-democratic undertone. (It's a little disturbing when people who see the president salute -- a military signal that suggests subordination.)

Obviously, I don't want to see presidents cutting their own rap videos or jumping into the ring with professional wrestlers. But at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, out problem is not too little presidential dignity but too much."

On the other hand, the president isn't a 20-year-old frat boy. But if there's a problem here, it's Jon Stewart's, not Obama's.

Maurice Murphy, 'Star Wars' Trumpeter, RIP

The Guardian:

"Maurice Murphy, who died yesterday, is an essential part of the soundtrack to your musical life – even if you don't realise it. Maurice was principal trumpeter of the London Symphony Orchestra for 30 years, from 1977-2007, and you have sung along to his unmistakable, brilliant sound even if you have never knowingly been to the Barbican to hear the LSO in the flesh. It's his trumpet playing you hear blazing over the soundtracks to all six Star Wars films, and it was his playing for John Williams on the first film – his first gig with the orchestra – that made Williams stick with the LSO for his future movies. But Murphy's playing was always cosmic in its splendour, as anyone will know who heard him with the brass section of the LSO in the countless concerts and recordings they made together."

The Big Business of Illegal Immigration

Slate:

"Over the past several months, NPR scoured campaign finance reports, corporate records and lobbying documents to gauge how deeply the private prison industry was involved in passing Arizona's immigration bill. NPR determined that the industry has been staging 'a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070' under the belief that 'immigrant detention is their next big market.'"

Disgusting. But brilliant journalism by NPR, and a reminder to the rest of us: There are very few laws that get passed simply because of a populist uprising. Somebody, somewhere, almost always stands to make a few bucks. The public and media would do well to always ask that question.

Why Does Obama Hate Business?

Kevin Drum says he doesn't:

"What's remarkable about all this is that Obama is, patently, not anti-business. All of the corporate complaints above, when you dig an inch below the surface, amount to lashing out at phantasms. However, although Obama isn't anti-business, it is fair to say that he's not especially business friendly. And after decades of almost literally getting their every heart's desire from Republican presidents and congresses, this has come as something as a shock to the corporate community. When Obama puts a tax break in the stimulus bill, it's aimed mainly at the middle class, not the rich. When he hires a labor secretary, it's someone who actually thinks labor laws should be enforced. When he says he wants to pass a healthcare reform bill, he actually does it. (Its impact on big business is close to zero, but no matter.) There's no evidence at all that Obama wants to punish big business, but at the same time it's quite plain that he cares much more about the middle class than he does about the rich.

And that's pretty hard for them to take. So they're apoplectic."

Judge: 4-Year-Old Can Be Sued

Oy. This case is a tragedy, but anybody who wants to use it to score points about our overly litigious society -- and the way judges enable our worst legal impulses -- probably won't get much argument from me. The case involves a 4-year-old girl named Juliet who accidentally injured (and killed) an 87-year-old woman while riding her bike with training wheels. Awful, horrible for everybody involved. But the court case makes it all worse.

Mr. Tyrie had also argued that Juliet should not be held liable because her mother was present; Justice Wooten disagreed.

“A parent’s presence alone does not give a reasonable child carte blanche to engage in risky behavior such as running across a street,” the judge wrote. He added that any “reasonably prudent child,” who presumably has been told to look both ways before crossing a street, should know that dashing out without looking is dangerous, with or without a parent there. The crucial factor is whether the parent encourages the risky behavior; if so, the child should not be held accountable.

Again: Oy. How many "reasonably prudent" 4-year-olds do you know? Kids are stupid, and they do stupid things -- even stupid things that they should know better than to do. What an awful case.

Here Is One Way Iraq is Better

I continue to believe the Iraq War a disaster -- but I suppose it's not an unmitigated disaster. Here's something that never would have happened under Saddam Hussein:

"The Iraqi prime minister's political opponents demanded Thursday that parliament hold a special session to investigate claims that prisoners have been tortured by his government.

Lawmakers from the Sunni-backed Iraqiya group have seized on the abuse allegations that surfaced last week in a cache of secret U.S. military documents released by online whistle-blower WikiLeaks as evidence that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is unfit to govern. Al-Maliki, meanwhile, has attacked the WikiLeaks release as an attempt to undermine him as he seeks to clench a second term in office."

I don't think this works as justification for the invasion and a seven-year war. But it's nice to see that if torture is still happening in Iraq, at least there's a political opposition to demand accountability. In fact, it would be nice to see that in the United States!