Author: Kevin B. O'Reilly

Gotta get paid

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

And so I am, by the gummint, no less! A friend of mine from Columbia helped hook me up with a group called the Aviation Integrity Project. AIP is an investigative unit funded by the Suburban O’Hare Commission, a group of 14 suburbs surrounding O’Hare Field that oppose expansion of the airport. So the bills, technically, are being paid by Elk Grove Village.

AIP is headed by Terrence Brunner, who used to head the Better Government Association (a longtime goo-goo organization) here in Chicago and has a lot of contacts in the city’s journalism circles. So while this may be a short-run gig, lasting only for as long as the SOC deigns to continue funding it and the issue of expansion itself stays alive, I hope that it will serve as an entree into my next job. If nothing else, this job will afford me the opportunity to
learn more about investigative journalism, which I haven’t done much of so far.

So, what is AIP investigating, exactly? Well, I won’t bore you with the details — and I don’t want to spoil what we’re working on — but the gist of it is that Da Mare and the city have long favored expansion of O’Hare as opposed to a third airport because the O’Hare is actually a part of Chicago, which means that the city controls all the contracts and jobs that get doled out at O’Hare, many of which aren’t even open to competitive bidding.

What we have, then, are airlines and a region desperate to add capacity, and the city doesn’t want a third airport to happen because it would mean they’d lose all that potential patronage. This sets the stage for lots of dirty dealings, including some juicy campaign finance stuff and more. Classic Chicago stuff. It’s fun, and for some odd reason doesn’t feel nearly as dirty as Washington. Maybe just because I’m used to Chicago; it seems more like harmless fun. Clearly, in both cases there is powermongering at play.

And both Da Mare and Dubya have a way with words. Hmm …

Here’s how the proposed legislation to preempt local control over airport expansion is unconstitutional. The author of that article, by the way, is arguing SOC’s case in court.

The summer wind came blowin’ from across the Potomac

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Actually, it almost never did. The weather was ungodly hot, hot and humid. But the summer was productive and, at times, fun. Working at KRT really gave me an opportunity to write many different types of stories and it was nice to get a taste of life in Washington.

A taste, however, was enough. Whenever I went to cover a speech or a news briefing or saw the latest politico speak to our group, I couldn’t help but involuntarily feel a little queasy. Somewhere, down deep, I couldn’t help but feel that this person — whatever their intentions — lusted after power over others. And worse yet, the entire atmosphere of that town means those with the most powerlust are guaranteed an eager following of syphocants, including journalists, who know that the most powerful people guarantee the biggest headlines.

It’s hard to explain in a rational way, really. I just know that I don’t want to live and work there right now, and I find it hard to imagine that I’d ever want to. Fortunately, that’s not even an option right now, as Karen likes her job at Midway Games here in Chicago, so we’ll be in the Windy City for a while to come.

Boy, it’s hard to think of a time in my life when I was as happy as when I finished that final exam on Thursday, July 25, meaning I was done with classes, done with the internship, done with the program and finally done with college. It was such a feeling of accomplishment. And in two days, I’d be on my way home to see my baby. Oh, it was bliss. It was bliss. It was bliss.

But I’ve a different kind of bliss to look forward to now — wedded bliss. We’re just about done with all the wedding plans. There are some details to be attended to, still, but for the most part it’s all taken care of. We’re taking some private dance lessons this weekend so that we don’t trip over each other during the first dance. That’s my goal, anyway.

We’re going to San Francisco on our honeymoon. We’ll be staying at a Hotel Monaco there. It should be glorious fun. I’ve been reading up about all the wonderful things to see and do, and I’m starting to get excited. I bought a couple of “underground” guide books so that we’re not just stuck in the tourist traps — though we’ll of course visit those.

We’ve already got tickets to a Giants game (hopefully the players and owners will pull their heads out of their asses and avoid a strike) and an Alcatraz tour.

A summer with the Post

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

I liked the Washington Post a lot before spending a few weeks in D.C., but there’s nothing likegetting your hands on a paper every day to really give you a feel for it. And the Post is an excellent paper; my favorite one, I think. The Times‘ Magazine is better, and so is its arts coverage, but when it comes to straight news coverage, features, and the editorial pages, the Post is fresher and more balanced.

Here are a few Post stories I read in D.C. that I thought were particularly interesting and linkworthy.

The first story is “At your convience,” a wonderful feature by Libby Copeland about 7-Eleven, written to mark the 75th anniversary of the convenience store chain. Here’s a taste:

Day and night at the 7-Eleven are alternate universes. At 7 a.m., the store is about efficiency. In and out. Construction workers and suits alike are en route to work; they want coffee, “instant food” (quicker even than fast food). Pre-made breakfast sandwiches. Many get the same thing at the same time. Every day. They know how many creams they want in their coffee.

At, say, 11 p.m., the place of business becomes a destination, a community center, in some neighborhoods. There’s a sense that anything goes. A guy walks in barefoot despite the “Shirts and Shoes Required” sign. Two young men jokingly — brazenly — grab a big carton of individually wrapped snacks by the cashier stand and walk out, then laugh and bring it back in. Then they do it again.

The night employees work till early in the morning. They serve breakfast at all hours: They sell to people just getting off work and people just going to work, and the whole thing goes ’round and ’round.

Let’s begin with the sun.

It might seem like a hokey way of going about it, but Copeland executes it beautifully.

The second story is “Cooler heads,” by Jennifer Frey, a pean to Willis Carrier, who somewhat accidentally invented the air conditioner 100 years ago.

A taste:

For most of us, though, summer comes with refrigerated work spaces, chilled shopping malls, bedrooms cooled to optimal sleeping temperatures — at least for the one in control of the thermostat. From the minute the heat wave descends upon us, we dial up the air conditioning, plug in the window units, seal ourselves off from the steamy outside world.

Without air conditioning, we would be limp, damp, foggy, irritable. We would be utterly miserable.

And so let us now praise the invention of air conditioning, which arrived 100 years ago today, and has changed our entire world.

Of course, I was still miserable in D.C. despite refrigerated home and work spaces. It was so goddamn hot. Ugh. The third Post story I recommend is “Designing women,” by Cynthia Gorney, a fascinating look at the scientists who are searching for the “female Viagra.”

While Gorney does a lot of good reporting, in the name of balance of subtlety she takes an overly skeptical view of the entire process. If you read to the end, I think you’ll find her reaction to a woman nearly in tears as obtuse as I did. But here’s a spicy taste:

If you walk into a sexual medicine clinic expecting some version of annotated anatomical charts, with step-by-step explanations of what transpires in the adult female during a fully satisfactory sexual experience, what you get instead still adds up to a giant scribble of circular arrows and question marks, brain to genitals to brain to genitals, with experts like Julia Heiman and Amy Heard-Davison adding research information that sometimes mystifies as much as it illuminates.

The third story is “Brian Lamb’s flock,” by Mark Leibovich, a nice little piece about the cult of personality that has formed around C-SPAN founder, guru and “Booknotes” host Brian Lamb. A taste:

Lamb is open to interpretations of himself — the solemn ones, mocking ones, camp ones.

He’ll play along. He is resigned to his celebrity niche. He has been called the most boring and the most trusted man in America, both of which he would take as a source of pride, or, at least, humor. He’s heard the cult thing over and over. He finds the status silly, if hardly complicated. “I do not want to be a star, I do not want to be a personality,” Lamb says, “and that fact creates a following that I can’t really explain.”

Lastly, there’s this excellent story by Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan, “Disparate Justice Imprisons Mexico’s Poor.” A part of the same series on Mexican justice which produced an excellent story about rape in that country, this story is just as heartbreaking. A taste:

Giovanni Hurtado Aviles was hurrying to his engineering class when he realized he didn’t have the two pesos — about 20 cents — for the subway. When he tried to use somebody’s else’s pass to get on, he was caught and hauled to jail. “I made a mistake. I am really sorry. I won’t do it again,” Hurtado, 20, said he told the guard who nabbed him that January morning.

But the Mexican justice system, which often fails to punish serious criminals, zealously prosecutes the most minor of offenders. So the college student with no criminal record was denied bailand forced to mop floors for 12 hours a day for two months while he awaited trial.

The rule of law is almost a cliche, now, but it’s not any less true. It’s this kind of injustice that makes a place like the United States, for all its flaws, such an attractive place comparatively speaking. Welfare has very, very little to do with why Mexicans stream across the border. It’s about opportunity. It’s about having some sense that the game isn’t rigged from the very start.

Hello, old friend, it’s very good to see you once again

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

I’ve finally got all the stories I wrote over the summer up on my Web site.

Now, I need to get a couple of hours’ sleep before work. I’ll post some commentary to go along with the stories soon enough, along with more general impressions of my summer in D.C., in addition to news about my job and whatever reflections or links I might have that aren’t totally pointless to go on about now that so much time has passed.

Teen moms take the next step in programs to prevent second pregnancies

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

KRTeens

Lillian Harris laughs when she’s asked whether she planned to get pregnant at 16.

“Definitely not,” she says. “I was in denial for a long time. I never went out to get a test. I didn’t want to accept that I was pregnant.”

But she was. And once the Chicago teen gave birth to her son Jubril, now 4, things only got more difficult. Harris struggled to finish high school while balancing a turbulent home life and the responsibility of raising a child. At one point, she and Jubril even lived in a women’s shelter.

Now 20, Harris is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in social work at the University of Illinois-Chicago and works part time as a pharmacist’s assistant. But perhaps most important, she has delayed a second pregnancy.

And that’s saying something. A quarter of teen-age mothers have a second child within two years of their first, researchers say. That second child is often the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Those so-called subsequent pregnancies are a blight on what could be an encouraging trend in teen pregnancy statistics. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that in 2000, the teen birth rate hit an all-time low of 48.7 births per 1,000 females aged 15 to 19 — a decline of 22 percent since 1991.

But having a second child can affect a teen mother’s future in myriad ways. So while avoiding a teen-age pregnancy is important, delaying subsequent pregnancies could be even more crucial in helping achieve better outcomes for both teen mothers and their children.

“Many kids can make it with one child, especially with the support of extended family,” explains Pat W. Mosena, a former demographer at the University of Chicago. “The second child is often a wipeout. At that point it’s long-term welfare. If [the second pregnancy] doesn’t change life options, it certainly puts those options on hold.”

According to the Center for Law and Social Policy, a nonprofit that provides civil legal assistance to low-income families, teen mothers who have subsequent pregnancies are one-third less likely to finish high school or get a GED and three times more likely to wind up on welfare. They’re also more likely to abuse or neglect their children and have them removed to foster care.

Spurred by her research, in 1990 Mosena founded the Illinois Subsequent Pregnancy Project, a state-funded program that works with teen moms over the course of two years to help delay a second pregnancy.

ISPP, which is run through nine health and social service agencies in Chicago and around the state, accepts 300 first-time mothers ranging from 14 to 18 years old and “provides intensive home visiting services coupled with substantive training and support through group participation,” Mosena said. This training includes education about birth control, school counseling and career-planning advice.

The program seems to be working. Between 1996 and 2000, only 2 percent to 4 percent of the teen moms participating in ISPP each year had a second pregnancy; 88 percent to 90 percent said they had no unprotected sex in the last month; and between 75 percent to 80 percent remained in or graduated from high school.

Yvette Mitchell, also of Chicago, is a graduate of ISPP and has since gone on to earn a master’s degree in social work. She was 18 when she gave birth to her son Hiram in 1992.

Mitchell, who was raised in a single-parent household, credits ISPP and training associate Anita Murphy with helping her achieve her dreams.

“She really explained to us that your roof is your child’s floor. Where you stop is where your child begins,” Mitchell said. “I knew that if I had anything then my child would have it. I didn’t want to get bound in by another child and be unable to give both children everything they needed, as far as nurturing and caring.”

Murphy said that many of the teen moms she works with “are missing options in many areas — family, school, work, positive role models — and all of these are inextricably tied to adolescent pregnancy. These factors, or the lack thereof, are not only affected by, but also precipitate pregnancy.”

While there’s no federal legislation that specifically targets teen subsequent pregnancy, programs similar to ISPP have achieved success elsewhere. The Nurse Home Visitation Program in place in Elmira, N.Y., and Memphis, Tenn., works with young mothers up to 24 months after the birth of their first child.

Harris, the young mother now at UIC, started out in ISPP but has now moved on to a slightly different program called Next Step for Teen Moms, a three-year-old Chicago venture that seeks to not only delay a second pregnancy but prepare teen moms for college.

The two-year program offers training sessions on contraception and career planning, but also helps the 20 to 25 girls in the program prepare for the SAT and the ACT, fill out college applications, and find scholarship and grant money.

What is most unique about the program, says coordinator Diane Deaderick, is that each girl is paired with a mentor from the Junior League of Chicago, a women’s community service volunteer organization that has committed $750,000 over five years to the project.

Nancy Snyder, president of the JLC — one of 296 junior leagues worldwide — said the focus on college readiness grew out of the stark disparity in lifetime earnings for college graduates and non-college graduates. According to a Census Bureau report released last July, the average lifetime earnings for a full-time, year-round worker with a high school education are about $1.2 million, compared with $2.1 million for a college graduate.

Harris’ mentor, Pat Arnold, helped her find an apartment to move into last May, and also helped in the job search that landed her at Osco Drug Co.

“She’s always trying to look out for me,” Harris said.

Arnold said she’s always enjoyed working with teen-agers, and Harris has been no exception. The mentors are meant to be older women who can serve as positive role models and help the teen moms in the programs find solutions to their problems.

“I couldn’t have found a better partner,” Arnold, 53, said. “One of the things I do love about Lillian is that I remember picking her up one day and she said, ‘I had a terrible weekend!’ She was constantly pouring out all the information I needed to help her.”

While it’s too early to judge Next Step for Teen Moms’ relative success, Harris said her relationship with Arnold will not end once she finishes the program next June.

“This is now a lifelong relationship,” she said. “We’re more than just a mentor and a partner. I consider her a friend.”

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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services.

What’s new, what’s cool: Please touch

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

For KRTKids

The bad thing about museums is that they have all these cool things — priceless artifacts, beautiful art, stuffed animals — but you can’t really do anything with them. The signs always say, “Do not touch.”

Not so at the Smithsonian for Kids Web site (http://www.si.edu/kids/). The Smithsonian is a collection of many different types of museums in Washington, D.C.

There are tons of neat things to do at this site. You can learn how to identify all those bugs in your back yard, how to read a satellite image, what you can make from a buffalo, test your knowledge of pandas or U.S. postal history, and watch how the bare skeleton of a triceratops moves as it walks.

Those are only a few of the many fun things to do at the Smithsonian for Kids site, which always says, “Click here,” and never says, “Do not touch.”

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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services

Long, long time — no blog, blog

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

It’s been extremely hectic here in D.C., between the midterms, finals and research-intensive features I’ve written for KRT. Oh, and also the not getting any sleep. I’ve barely had time to answer e-mails, read news and other blogs, let alone do any of my own blogging. But I’ve got a blogging backlog if things I’ll be catching up with once I get home.

So look for a slew of posts next week. Until then.

Student activists discuss universities’ limits on free speech

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

For KRT Campus

WASHINGTON — Conservative campus activists complained Friday that since Sept. 11 university administrators have stifled displays of patriotism and support for the war on terrorism.

In a panel organized by the conservative group Accuracy in Academia, three student activists told stories of how they felt their speech rights were hampered on campus.

“Patriotism at the University of Michigan was suppressed by political correctness,” said U-M student Allison Tarr. “After 9/11, we were hit by a barrage of anti-war demonstrations, which only reinforced the repugnant anti-American image of Ann Arbor.”

Tarr said that the Diag, the main area on the U-M campus where students demonstrate with university permission, saw many displays and expressions of understanding for Muslims and the Islamic world, but little expression of sorrow for the men and women killed on Sept. 11.

“Instead of encouraging women to don Muslim headdresses, why not encourage people to wear flags?” Tarr asked.

Arizona State University student Oubai Shahbandar said things were worse on his campus. On Sept. 26, a large American flag was hung in one of the residence halls, but it was taken down by the administration, Shahbandar said.

The administration claimed that the flag would be offensive to the many international and Muslim students who resided in the hall.

Shahbandar, who was born in Damascus, Syria, and moved to the United States with his family at age 7, objected to the university’s action. He proposed a resolution in the student senate to put the flag back up, but it was defeated. He continued to make noise, causing ASU to lose $1 million in alumni contributions.

“Finally, the university acquiesced and put the flag back up,” Shahbandar said. “We won a small victory in the culture war.”

But the battle over campus speech is not new, said Thor L. Halvorssen, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a legal group that works to protect the individual rights of students and professors in universities.

“The assault on freedom of speech on campuses has been going on for 15 years,” Halvorssen said. Restrictions take the form of speech codes and zones of free speech on campus. “It’s only after Sept. 11 that people are starting to notice it more.”

Halvorssen said that both pro-war and anti-war students and professors sought FIRE’s legal help.

“We had a number of people who came to us with their cases who expressed a desire to take immediate military action or hoist the American flag and express their patriotic spirit,” Halvorssen said. “There were many more cases of that type than speech calling for restrained action or who said the U.S. was to blame in some way.”

Jordan Kurland, associate general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, disagreed.

“Controversial positions taken on international affairs have not suffered greatly since Sept. 11,” Kurland said. “What has been much more of a problem is the great slew of steps taken in terms of federal legislation.” Kurland referred to the Patriot Act and other counterterrorism measures that he felt would hamper intellectual freedom.

Kurland did say that “there is an atmosphere of intense bitterness” on the Israeli-Palestine conflict, with Jewish-American and Arab-American students taking the other side’s views very personally.

“There’s a degree of incivility or worse that is very bothersome and has appeared in a number of college campuses in that regard,” Kurland said.

Whether conservative or liberal, “Nowhere do you have a right not to be offended,” Halvorssen said. “People offend each other all the time — it’s called debate.”

The student panel, “Campus Anti-Americanism in the Wake of 9/11,” was part of a four-day conference called Conservative University, which featured an array of speakers and events for the dozens of college students who paid to attend. The conference also was organized by Accuracy in Academia.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services

The sports stadium scam: What is seen and what is not seen

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

The Fund for American Studies’ Institute on Political Journalism

The local sports franchise is in trouble. The owner says the old stadium is economically obsolete and the taxpayers must rush in to save the day, or else he will be forced to move the team elsewhere.

The voters, scared to lose the team they love, give in. A new stadium is built and the area around the stadium is revitalized. Restaurants, bars and shops pop up. The city retains its identity as a “major-league city,” and through the magic of the multiplier effect the local economy grows as a whole.1

Voila. The owner wins. The fans win. The city wins. Heck, sometimes the team even wins — games!

It’s a great story, but — like the notion of a Cubs‘ world championship — it’s largely a pipe dream. The real story is that taxpayer subsidization of professional sports facilities is almost always a losing bet, economically speaking.2

The economic impact studies employed by politicians, the news media, and pro sports owners to support government-financed facilities are beset by methodological problems and don’t count all the relevant costs.3

The real story is that taxpayer-financed sports facilities are a boon to owners and players, the news media and especially politicians, but average taxpayers — particularly those too poor to afford to attend sporting events regularly and those who don’t follow sports to begin with — wind up on the losing end.4

The construction of sports facilities has skyrocketed in the last 15 years. According to economists Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist, thirty-one new stadiums and arenas were built between 1989 and 1997 alone.5 They also estimate that $7 billion will be spent on new facilities before 2006, and most of that money will come from public sources.6

The idea that taxpayers should pay to build a sports facility and then let the team owner reap most of the profits seems a little far-fetched.7 How has this happened? Sports owners claim poverty (relative to other owners) because as ticket and broadcast revenue-sharing in sports leagues has increased, one area where owners can still keep most of their gains is from team memorabilia, concessions, parking, hotels, luxury boxes and all the other amenities associated with live sports nowadays.8

Other owners use these newfound profits to buy higher caliber talent, which leads to better on-field performance, which leads to yet another round of profits. Without taxpayer subsidies for a new facility that will allow them to extract these non-shared income streams, owners say they cannot compete. But as economist Mark Rosentraub has written, “It is difficult to find any real evidence that team owners or players need subsidies or welfare support.”9 Still, a team’s threat of leaving often proves too much for politicians to bear, which will be explored more in-depth later.

We know why owners want new facilities, but what arguments are put forth to justify them to the public at large? It is usually argued that a new facility will actually prove to be not just a subsidy for an ailing sports franchise but a boon to the local economy as a whole. This is usually done through the economic impact study, and a key economic theory expounded in these studies is the multiplier effect.

“The theory is supported by a simple observation,” explains economist William J. Hunter. “When an individual purchases goods or a business pays salaries, the recipients of these funds will in turn spend the money. This additional spending tends to increase income and employment, which in turn generates still more spending, and so on.”10

Hunter goes on to add, “While it is no doubt true that this process takes place, the common belief that the results of this process can be accurately measured and manipulated by the government is mistaken — and genuinely dangerous.”11 One major problem, Hunter explains, is the “local production fallacy,” where the “local economy is presumed to benefit from all the jobs, primary and secondary, ‘created’ by the public works project.”12

Much of the money that is spent both in the construction of facilities and in the operation of the facility and the franchise winds up going elsewhere. “A multiplier might appear to some to be the magical mystery tour of any economy,” says Rosentraub, providing an example to prove his point. He and a friend go out to dinner in Indianapolis, but how much of the money they spend actually stays in town?13

The food was purchased from farms or ranches in other states. The money that was invested probably came from multinational banks not even based in town. So to assume that all the money put into a project multiplies locally is to deny the reality of a modern economy.

Furthermore, what is most overlooked in economic impact studies is the opportunity cost of the project. What could have been produced by alternative uses of the same capital and land in the private sector?14 Indeed, if the multiplier theory made sense, almost no public project would be a net loss, Hunter argues. “By increasing public expenditures, even greater increases in community income can be effected through the multiplier’s ripple effect … Certainly if one bridge can generate far more community income than additional cost, several bridges connected by new highways will bring even more income.”15

The truth is, Hunter says, that “government spending does not ripple through the local economy, and does not swell private incomes.” Why? Because of the opportunity cost of the consumption and production “forgone by citizens who must pay taxes to support public spending.”16 Indeed, there is a deadweight loss from taxation that also goes uncounted by most economic impact studies. According to Noll and Zimbalist, “the social cost of taxation exceeds tax collections by about 25 percent.”17 This means that the true cost of, say, a $200 million sports facility would actually be $250 million.

So economic impact studies are seriously flawed, but what does the empirical research tell us about the actual economic effects of taxpayer-subsidized sports facilities? First, while sports get a great amount of media attention, they are a very small part of any local economy. Most franchises have annual budgets of $60 to $100 million, and while that’s certainly a valued contribution to the local economy, Rosentraub explains, “businesses of this size are quite small when compared to other organizations in urban areas.”18

How small a contribution do sports franchises make to a local economy? Rosentraub’s got the data. As of 1992, pro sports make up only .06 percent of total private-sector employment in all U.S. counties with 300,000 or more residents.19 The U.S. county with the largest concentration of direct employment in 1992 was Georgia’s Fulton County, where the Braves, Hawks and Falcons play — a mere 0.32 percent.20 Here’s another stunning figure, again courtesy of Rosentraub: As of 1997, Sears Roebuck & Co. reported annual sales approximately 30 times the revenues of all of Major League Baseball.21

While it’s true that the evidence seems to indicate that many sports facilities are not attractive private investments (since 1953, approximately 71 percent are publicly owned), there may be a crowding-out effect at play, argues economist Robert A. Baade.

“Subsidization by the public sector of stadium construction is one rendition of an old saw,” Baade writes. “Do not spend your private funds when the government will financially accommodate your private ambition. It is quite plausible that the private sector has not often invested in stadium construction because it has not needed to.”22 The empirical results of taxpayer-subsidized sports facilities, however, are crystal clear.

Noll and Zimbalist deliver one of many death blows: “A new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment. No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment. No recent facility has been self-financing in terms of its impact on net tax revenues.”23 They do not stand alone in their harsh judgment.

According to Baade and Richard F. Dye, “Independent research has not supported the notion that direct economic benefit exceeds cost.”24 Their regression analysis of sports facilities built from 1965 to 1983 concluded, “The presence of a new or renovated stadium has an insignificant impact on area income for all but one of the metropolitan areas.”

The exception was Seattle, which also gained a new football franchise.25 Economist Dean V. Baim concluded in 1990 that “stadium construction is not a low-risk investment.”26 In fact, Beam found that for the years 1953 to 1986, teams received an “aggregate subsidy of $139.3 million to play in municipal stadiums.”27

Baade and many others argue that sports facilities do not increase economic activity but merely divert entertainment spending from one source to another. “The leisure budget of a family or an individual is limited, in terms of both money and time,” Baade writes. “It seems likely, then, that a dollar spent at the Spectrum in Philadelphia may well be a dollar less spent at a movie theater in Bucks County.”28 Rosentraub redoubles the argument, saying, “If the economic activity would have taken place if the team did not exist, then there is NO overall economic impact, just a transfer of economic activity.”29

So sports facilities lose money and merely divert economic activity from one item to another, but that’s not all. Analysis has shown that sports facilities actually worsen the local economy, because they result in seasonal, low-wage, low-skill service sector jobs. “An area development strategy which concentrates on these types of jobs could lead to a situation where the city gains a comparative advantage in unskilled and seasonal labor,” write Baade and Dye.30

There’s nothing wrong with such a comparative advantage, but it could probably be achieved without massive taxpayer subsidy, and what remains unknown is what kind of jobs and industries would have developed had taxpayer dollars not been taken in the first place.

The only argument left in favor of taxpayer-subsidized sports facilities is that they help enhance the city’s image, thus attracting businesses to the area. But sports alone will not be a determining factor in a corporation’s decision to relocate to the area.31 It is only one of many factors, and since it has been shown that in many ways these facilities make cities worse off economically, it would be wiser to let taxpayers keep their money and stay away from these high-risk public investments.

It should be clear by now that taxpayer subsidization of sports facilities makes little economic sense. The question that remains is how these projects get approved by the voters when the evidence is so damning. Public choice theory tells us that when one small group has a lot to gain from a given government action and a large, diffuse group has only a little to lose individually, the former group will prevail.32 In June 1997, for example, both San Francisco and Washington held referenda on new sports facilities.

Both won by the barest of margins. San Francisco’s supporters of the stadium deal outspent their opponents 25 to 1, while Washington’s pro-stadium groups outspent their opponents 80 to 1.33 Even if stadium proponents lose the first time around, they come back again and again, because the potential profits of rent-seeking are huge.

The news media also have much to gain from new sports facilities, especially if they are built to retain or attract franchises. “Sports are a critical asset for the mass media and directly contribute, in several ways, to the profitability of newspapers, television stations, and radio stations,” explains Rosentraub.34 Sports make up as much as 20 percent of what appears in newspapers, and firms such as the Tribune Co. and Turner Broadcasting (now part of AOL-Time Warner) have even bought franchises (the Cubs and the Braves) in order to provide content for their broadcasting outlets.

For politicians, the short-term benefits of supporting taxpayer-subsidized facilities are great. They reap the rewards of an extremely visible project usually gracing the heart of downtown where tourists are likely to visit. They are hailed as saviors for keeping the local team in town or attracting a new one after the old one has left. The long-term losses don’t begin to sink in until well after they’ve left office.

When a team demands a new stadium only 20 years after its last stadium was built with taxpayer dollars, the mayor or governor who helped shepherd that deal has long gone on to greener pastures. But the taxpayers have no such escape.

Furthermore, the losses are largely invisible and hard to calculate. Whatever investment might have taken place in the stadium deal’s absence surely would not have been as concentrated and visible as the domed monstrosities that are constructed in the hearts of cities. The sports stadium scam is a classic case of what is seen and what is not seen, as the 19th century French economist Frederic Bastiat explained in his famous essay.

“This explains the fatally grievous condition of mankind,” Bastiat wrote. “Ignorance surrounds its cradle: then its actions are determined by their first consequences, the only ones which, in its first stage, it can see. It is only in the long run that it learns to take account of the others.”35 The accounting has been done, and taxpayers are on the losing end, while wealthy special interests, politicians and the news media are better off.

The wonders of government never cease to amaze.

Citations:
1 Rosentraub, Mark S. “Major League Losers: The Real Cost of Sports and Who’s Paying for It.” New York: Basic Books, 1997, p. 25.

2 Noll, Roger G. and Zimbalist, Andrew S. “Sports, Jobs, and Taxes.” Washington: Brookings, 1997, p. 88.

3 Hunter, William J. “Economic Impact Studies: Inaccurate, Misleading, and Unnecessary.” Heartland Policy Study No. 21, July 21, 1988. Available: http://www.heartland.org/studies/sports/hunter.htm.

4 Noll and Zimbalist, supra note 2, p. 87.

5 Ibid., p. 5.

6 Noll, Roger G. and Zimbalist, Andrew S. “Sports, Jobs, and Taxes,” The Brookings Review, Summer 1997, p. 35.

7 Rosentraub, supra note 1, pp. 90-100.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid., p. 15.

10 Hunter, supra note 3, p. 1.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid., p. 2.

13 Rosentraub, supra note 1, p. 162-163.

14 Bast, Joseph L. “Sports Stadium Madness: Why It Started and How to Stop It.” Heartland Policy Study, February 23, 1998, p. 5. Available: http://www.heartland.org/studies/sports/madness-ps.htm.

15 Hunter, supra note 3, p. 7.

16 Ibid.

17 Noll and Zimbalist, supra note 2, p. 61.

18 Rosentraub, supra note 1, p. 139.

19 Ibid., p. 143.

20 Ibid., p. 144.

21 Rosentraub, Mark S. “Are Tax-Funded Sports Arenas a Good Investment for America’s Cities?” Insight, September 22, 1997, p. 27.

22 Baade, Robert A. “Is There an Economic Rationale for Subsidizing Sports Stadiums?” Heartland Policy Study No. 13, February 23, 1987, pp. 1-2. Available: http://www.heartland.org/studies/sports/baade1.htm.

23 Noll and Zimbalist, supra note 2, p. 36.

24 Baade, Robert A. and Dye, Richard F. “The Impact of Stadiums and Professional Sports on Metropolitan Area Development.” Growth and Change, Spring 1990, pp. 1-14 (p. 2).

25 Ibid., p. 10.

26 Baim, Dean V. “Sports Stadiums as ‘Wise Investments’: An Evaluation.” Heartland Policy Study No. 32, November 26, 1990, p. 4. Available: http://www.heartland.org/studies/sports/baim2.htm.

27 Ibid., p. 5.

28 Baade, supra note 22, p. 11.

29 Rosentraub, supra note 1, p. 155. Italics not mine.

30 Baade and Dye, supra note 24, p. 7.

31 Rosentraub, supra note 1, pp. 170-171.

32 Olson, Mancur. “The Logic of Collective Action.” Boston: Harvard University, 1971.

33 Noll and Zimbalist, supra note 2, p. 85.

34 Rosentraub, supra note 1, pp. 49-50.

35 Bastiat, Frederic. “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen.” 1850. Available: http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html.

‘Ozzy Unauthorized’ digs not-so-deeply into Osbourne’s bizarre life

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

For KRTeens

“Whatever else I do,” heavy metal legend Ozzy Osbourne once said, “my epitaph will be: Ozzy Osbourne, born Dec. 3, 1948. Died, whenever. And he bit the head off a bat.”

Six million viewers — many of them teen-agers — tuned in to make “The Osbournes” the highest-rated show in MTV history. But their knowledge of Osbourne’s life and career probably doesn’t extend much beyond his imagined epitaph.

Looking to fill in the gap and capitalize on the show’s popularity, author Sue Crawford has written “Ozzy Unauthorized” (Michael O’Mara Books, $14.95), a bite-sized look at Osbourne’s amazing story.

The breezily written biography dwells on Osbourne’s personal travails and pays scant attention to his music. Crawford converts VH1’s “Behind the Music” formula perfectly into print.

While “Unauthorized” — written, as the title implies, without the cooperation of the Osbournes — does not do justice to Osbourne’s lasting influence on heavy metal, especially his work with Black Sabbath, the book does dish out the juicy details of his debauchery-laden past.

Early on, Osbourne was fascinated with death and with killing living things.

“I always had a big thing about the darker side of life, the morbid gray side of things,” Osbourne says in the book.

The catalog of morbid acts seems endless: He once tried to strangle a brother and set fire to a sister; he once took seven different drugs in one day; he shot a bunch of chickens in his back yard and later shot 17 family cats; he bit the head off a dove in a meeting with record company executives; and during a bender he attempted to strangle his beloved second wife, Sharon.

That last bit of bad behavior earned him three months in a rehabilitation facility and nearly ended his marriage. Sharon eventually forgave Ozzy for the incident, just as she has forgiven most of his sins.

In fact, in her acknowledgments, Crawford sends “a heartfelt thank you to Sharon Osbourne for keeping Ozzy alive for the last seven chapters; without her this would have been a very slim volume.”

Since Sharon bought out Osbourne’s contract from her father, Don Arden, his life has changed entirely. He no longer uses illegal drugs and rarely drinks. Where once he went through gobs of money, now Sharon manages his career with great success, landing them a spot on British Rich List in 2001 with a joint fortune of $58 million.

Add to that the reported $19.5 million the Osbournes will be paid by MTV for a second season of their reality sitcom antics, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

The big question that Crawford fails to answer in her book — and which is probably unanswerable by even Osbourne himself — is how much of his life is an act put on to amuse, entertain or frighten others, and how much is a real expression of his inner torment.

“When I’m cornered,” Osbourne says in the book, “when I’m surrounded by a lot of other people, I feel like I have to be an eccentric for them to like me.”

The secret of the TV show’s success is that because Osbourne’s bad-boy image is so deeply engrained in the public mind, eccentricity for him now means puttering around his house in track pants trying to discipline his own teen-age children, Jack and Kelly.

“Ozzy Unauthorized” only highlights what a radical departure Osbourne’s current home life is from his first 40 years on the planet.

In that sense, it is perfect summer reading. It won’t mess up a day at the beach by probing its subject too deeply.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services

For athletes, summer weather and heavy pads can be a deadly combination

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

For KRTeens

If your most strenuous physical activity this summer has been the occasional long walk to the refreshment stand at the local multiplex, then you need to be especially careful when getting in gear for the fall sports season.

For the 1.5 million teen-agers who suit up to play high school and junior high school football every August, it may seem like the worst thing that could happen is to not make the team or, worse yet, get whipped with a wet towel in the locker room after practice.

But the hot, humid late summer weather combined with players’ heavy padding can add up to a formula for tragedy.

Take the case of Craig Lobrano, 17, an all-state football player at Varina High School in Varina, Va. Thirty minutes into an early September practice last year he collapsed from heatstroke. The temperature was only 77 degrees, but the humidity was 85 percent. Lobrano died two days later.

Lobrano is one of 20 young football players who have died of heat-related causes since 1995. Three players died of heatstroke last year, and 100 have died of heatstroke since 1960, according to study released last February by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research.

Too often, athletes eager to impress coaches and teammates dismiss the warning signs their bodies are give them.

Joshua Krenz, now 21, played high school football for four years in Fall Creek, Wis. He says he saw few of his teammates take themselves out of a practice or a game because of dehydration or heat exhaustion.

“I think there was this attitude that guys wanted to show they were tough, either to impress their teammates or to impress the coach,” Krenz said.

What makes these heat-related deaths especially tragic is that they could be avoided, says Frederick O. Mueller, co-author of the football deaths study and chair of the American Football Coaches Committee on Football Injuries.

“There is no excuse for any number of heatstroke deaths since they are all preventable with the proper precautions,” Mueller said. “Every effort should be made to continuously educate coaches concerning the proper procedures and precautions when practicing or playing in the heat.”

Football players are at an even greater risk of heatstroke than other athletes because they wear so much padding, explained Dr. Robert Gotlin, director of orthopedic and sports rehabilitation at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. He added, however, that athletes in all sports — including other fall sports such as cross country — are at risk when training in hot, humid weather.

Krenz said the Fall Creek High School football team’s practices began in early August, when temperatures would hit highs in the low 90s or upper 80s. Practices were held in the mornings or at night to make it easier on players, Krenz said, but it was still hard.

“We took breaks every half hour or 40 minutes for water and to rest,” he said.

“Thirst is the first sign of dehydration,” Gotlin said. “By that time, you’re already a little bit dehydrated.” Gotlin, who coaches younger football players as a hobby, said players should receive breaks every 15 to 20 minutes for a quick breather and cold water or electrolyte drinks like Gatorade.

Mueller advised that 15- to 30-minute rest periods be provided for each hour of practice.

Krenz, now a senior at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, also said many players arrived in practice out of shape and unprepared for the level of activity football practices require.

“The biggest problem, I think, was that guys spent all summer going to the beach or not doing anything,” Krenz said. “Then they’d come to football practice and try to go at it for a couple of hours like they were in perfect shape. You just can’t do that.”

This is why Mueller recommends that coaches “acclimatize athletes to heat gradually by providing graduated practice sessions for the first seven to 10 days and other abnormally hot or humid days.”

All players should have a complete physical exam before the season begins, Mueller said. Krenz said that players at his school were required to have a physical every two years, and he knew of at least one player who did not return because he failed the physical.

According to Mueller’s report, signs of heat illness and dehydration include nausea, incoherence, fatigue, weakness, vomiting, cramps, a flushed appearance, blurred vision, unsteadiness and profuse sweating.

Aside from heatstroke, another danger to football players enduring practices in August heat is the risk of heart problems. Gotlin said that problems like cardiac arrhythmia — an irregular heartbeat — often go undiagnosed and can be exacerbated or become fatal when players exert themselves in extreme temperatures.

There were six heart-related football deaths in 2001, according to Mueller’s report.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information Services

Web site of the week: Blogger.com

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

For KRTeens

While you might tease them for being geeky, in your heart you secretly envy the kids with their own Web sites. You want your own, but the only C++ you know is the grade you got in geometry.

While programs like Dreamweaver have made creating Web pages easier than ever, a new — and more importantly, free — program has come along to give you the power to publish instantly on the Web from anywhere in the world.

It’s called Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/) and it’s used to publish what are called blogs — diary-like sites consisting of short posts, photos, poems or whatever else you want. With Blogger, you don’t even need to pay for an Internet hosting service. You can get a free “blogspot” to post your musings.

Once you’ve set up your blog, all you need to do to update it is go to the Blogger Web site, sign in and start typing. When you’re done, click “Post & Publish” and your latest thought is on the Web.

Blogger also allows you to do a group blog. You and a group of friends can post for fun, or you can use it as part of a group school project.

Be the envy of all your geek friends — become a blogger.
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© 2002, McClatchy/Tribune Information
Services

All-Star shame

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Bud Selig’s decision to call the All-Star Game is such an unmitigated disaster that it almost boggles the mind to think how he thought he could possibly get away with it. This decision upsets me more than the strike talk and steroid allegations.

Labor problems I can understand. The owners believe they can’t survive unless there’s some kind of salary cap and revenue sharing. The players think the owners are lying and, more importantly, don’t think they can lose. All of this is ugly, sure, and another “work” stoppage (ahem, it’s a “play” stoppage, actually — and that’s not merely a semantic difference) would bring me great sadness. And while it would affect the game in the most obvious way, the roots of the problem lie beyond the game itself and belong in the realm of industrial and labor economics.

How can I get angry about the economic realities of the game and the incentives each side faces to keep fighting and not give in to the other side? Those are the facts, and they probably won’t change anytime soon (if what we know about game theory is true). They impact the game, but they are not about the game.

As for steroids, I think that if major-league baseball has a rule against their use, it ought to do random testing to enforce the rule. It’s only common sense. But I don’t see it as a black mark on the game that some players (to speculate on how many seems irresponsible and silly at this point) use steroids to give themselves an advantage. Players in all sports have always done just about everything to give themselves an advantage, and performance-enhancing drugs are no exception.

There are certain things we think should be allowed (bigger mitts, pine tar, batting gloves and gear, etc.) and others that shouldn’t (spitballs, nail files, steroids, etc.). It’s not a black mark on the game that some folks try to cheat, especially when the game is so unserious about enforcing the rules. Again, steroid use impacts the game, but in the end it’s not about the game.

What Bud Selig, Joe Torre, Bob Brenly & co. did to the All-Star Game is another matter entirely. It was a calculated decision to change the rules of the game — while the game was in progress! — for the convenience of the players and against the interests of the fans both in the ballpark and at home. No, that’s too weak a condemnation. It doesn’t even come close to describing the bile that rises in my throat when I think about what they did.

Baseball, unlike most other sports, is timeless. Part of its charm is that, conceivably, a game could go on forever. The average game may last too long, but I’ve never heard a paying fan complain about an extra-inning game. It’s one of baseball’s little devilish tricks that just when you — as a manager, as a player, as a fan — think you’ve got the right strategy figured out to win the game, something can come up and bite you in the ass.

That big bopper you replaced with a light-hitting, speedy defensive replacement — you’re stuck with him and his .240 on-base percentage for the rest of the game. The star catcher you replaced with a rookie so the old-timer could rest his knees — the only good he can do now is wear a rally cap and yell from the bench, as helpless as a fan in the last row of the park.

That is the essence of managing — making decisions that will be second-guessed as soon as you make them and that just as often go well as badly. The constraint on all of your free-wheeling is that you know that the game must be played. No matter what, a conclusion must be had. It ain’t over ’til the last man is out or the winning run crosses the plate.

That’s the game. That’s the way it has been for about 150 years now. Unless there’s bad weather or there aren’t enough players on the field to finish the game, it goes on. The toil of the player continues, for the pleasure of the spectator. Until last night.

“Oh, but what about the players? They might get hurt!” it’s said. “Oh, but what about the players’ regular managers? They’ll be upset!” it’s said. Yes, they might get hurt — that’s known going in. Every game carries the risk that a player might get hurt. No one must participate in the All-Star Game. Players bluff injuries all the time to get out of it. You don’t have to be at the game. You don’t have to start the game. But you’ve got to finish it.

“Oh, but it’s just an exhibition!” it’s said. Yes, it was. It was an exemplary exhibition of a kind of unthinking arrogance which believes it can go around changing the rules willy-nilly without any repercussions, and without any consideration of the game’s true trustees, the fans who cherish it so deeply.

On very few occasions, I’ve left a ballgame early. Usually, it was because I was so tired or sick that I just couldn’t stick it out. I’ve regretted every single time. Sure, I felt bad because I wasted my money or someone else’s, but more so because when I go to a game I like to watch it from start to end. There is a wholeness to it that I find somehow satisfying in a way I’m not sure how to express.

But whether or not I can stick out the end of a game (and I almost always do), I take for granted that it goes on. Like the sun and the moon and the tides, it started without me and will go on when I’m gone. And like our silly little universe, it too will fade into nothingness eventually. The game will go on no matter how many play stoppages we have, because the love we have for the game far exceeds the greed of the owners and the players.

The only way the game will be destroyed is if the game itself changes. And though I’m sure that superficial changes will be made to make sure that this won’t happen again, the fact that Bud Selig would even think it permissible to unnecessarily conclude a game without conclusion speaks very poorly of his understanding of what makes the game so special.

It’s all about the game. If we forget that, we are truly lost. Selig and friends may have forgotten momentarily, but those 41,000-plus fans in Miller Park (paid for with their tax dollars, incidentally) didn’t forget.

“Let them play!” they chanted. “Let them play!” Music to my ears.