Kneeling At The Sports Pedestal

Sports madness at The Ohio State University continues even after all these years, despite the "bowl ban"...How could it not?

In the wake of the Jerry Sandusky controversy at rival Pennsylvania State University, a news feature announced a new coach for the Buckeye Football Team, Urban Meyer. He was hired for a contract worth over $27 million for four years hard labor.

Okay, you might call it sour grapes. My husband used to be a mathematics professor at Ohio State, doing hard labor for peanuts, relatively, measured in the thousands of dollars, rather than millions. Yet no one in the entire world, not just America, could do the exact same academic discipline in mathematics as my husband could do because he invented it.

Back then, Columbus, Ohio, seemed football-crazy. All the traffic lights were green around the stadium after a game. Hotels filled, food sources benefited…Obviously, nothing has changed about the way the University rewards the sports program for tourism and entertainment reasons.

Which other country on the entire planet, at a major university funded primarily through taxes, had a group of people who agreed that a coach of a single sport deserved greater rewards of money and outside benefits than the most brilliant scholars at that same university and the President? The practice is widespread, I hear, and how crazy is that?

Imagine if this scenario were turned around. Supposing football became associated with the least prestige and monetary reward within the university? Suppose many of the players received life-threatening concussions from playing the sport? Woudn't decent citizens take pity on the players and, with a flash of decently good conscience, stop the program? I'm dreaming of utopia.

Ohioans and the parents of Ohio State University students keep cheering. They pay that much for a sports coach to the detriment, at the cost, of the primary university function -  the teaching and researching duet. They place him on an ivory pedestal. Professors aren't paid much, aren't on an ivory pedestal, because the sports program needs the money, or so the rumor goes.

What is the history of American football?

Modestly it expanded from a game history suggest was played between Harvard and McGill University in 1874, following an earlier 1859 game between Princeton and neighboring Rutgers University.

My point is that the sport of American football is new, unproven, and anti-academic. Paying astronomical rates to sports coaches at universities is also new, and completely newsworthy. Why have universities taken to rewarding sports at the expense of academic pursuits? It's crazy.

The idea that donors pay the universities on the strength of the football program and tickets sold can be discounted by searching Google for the endowments of private universities in general, which are far higher than those of public universities. Private universities do not focus on  popular football mega-events, not on the same scale.

I think universities are unbalanced when they reward sports more than the disciplines that they ethically, often with government funding, have the mandate to fulfill.

And exactly where are girls, women, females, children, and infants, in all this talk of football? Forgotten, irrelevant, useless, unnecessary???...

Music Relaxes More than Massage in Scientific Studies

Why not consider listening to music when you have an excess of tension and need to relax?

Many musicians have created "yawnfests"and they make wonderful lullabies. Some say they listen every evening, so this music, not surprisingly, has become popular for its therapeutic benefits.

One of them, called "Weightless" using biofeedback in laboratory studies, relieved tension by an astonishing sixty-five percent in women. That result alone makes it more effective and relaxing than a massage! Sustained tones, chimes, bring peace. The listener gets out of the way and relaxes at a deep level. Even better is to be able to listen in the bath, in bed, at the computer, wherever.

Apart from not listening while driving, how harmless can it be to listen to relaxing music with physiological effects on the brain? Better than another drink, I would assert.

Which music, of any era, do you find most relaxing---religious music, eastern, classical music, decades-old music?

If Helmets Aren't Enough To Protect Players, What's the Solution?

Dear National Hockey League Commissioner:

Picture of a canary bird and a coal miner

Why deny overwhelming scientific evidence that brain injuries in hockey players are caused by the sport? Why be so bold except to protect your future business?

More important: what is your solution?

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Today, an important article in the New York Times concerns the tragic death of a 28-year-old hockey star. Scientific proof has made into fact some suspicions deeply-held by many, that sports stars are dying in record numbers from degenerative brain diseases. Doctors who analyzed and studied his brain tissues and brains of similar sports stars believe there is no longer any doubt whatsoever that many sports cause and worsen health issues that can lead to needless premature death. Such brain diseases are diagnosed posthumously.

The business of sports in general continues to expand. At the same time lingering health issues of living players are ignored and categorically denied by bosses because players get   injured and treat themselves in different ways. The sports business depends on denying  such problems, but morally, it's wrong.  It's obvious to see the problems that degenerative health issues would imply for the world of sports.

I say SHAME on all those who profit from blood sports -- "blood" being contact sports that injure the brains and bodies of players for life outside the game. Pure greed is easy to recognize.

My best wishes and condolences go to those families who have made the ultimate sacrifice for any sport.

Luckily, this is not my personal problem. In my family unit, we prefer not to watch blood sports.

Does Driving Encourage Premarital Sex?

In countries where women have been driving for generations, the answer is negative. We wonder where the science could be behind that idea? We in the western world believe just as premarital sex encourages more premarital sex, driving encourages more driving....They are two different activities.

Does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sincerely want more drivers? Perhaps that is the real issue in such countries that do not encourage women to drive.  Everyone has to be persuaded with good reasons, which I give below because I believe Saudi Arabia should encourage women to drive.

Driving is a good skill to learn and can make girls safer if they have the option of not entering a car with drivers they do not feel comfortable with, and so they will not be kidnapped. 

Driving for women is an important human right and a good idea, and of course, they need to have the option of driving lessons.

If women drive, they can, among other activities:

1) help drive their families for food shopping

2) drive sick and old women who feel safer with a young girl

3) drive cars to schools

4) take pets to veterinarians and drive horse vans

5) go shopping for food and clothing by themselves

6) girls can safely go to movies with their girlfriends

7) some women prefer to drive enormous trucks and help the economy

They might be safer at night in their own car than in a bus, walking, or driving in someone else's car. They can use their own car if the other driver is not a safe driver or does not wish to drive, or they do not wish to enter a certain car. Of course, they have to learn how to drive, follow the legal rules of the road, and practice safe, defensive driving.

As a mother of two girls in New Jersey, both of mine have learned to drive, and have their own cars. They learned to drive first in classroom lessons, and then instructor-led outings in a car with dual brakes. Rules of the road here are so strict that girls and boys cannot drive until they are seventeen, and only fully when they are eighteen. Many teenagers delay driving a little longer...Students growing up in New York City itself often do not learn how to drive at all.

We want what we want, and life doesn't always give us what we want even if we deserve it.