Now Batting: Kitty Burke

            July 31, 1935, was a historic day for women’s rights.  In the 6^th inning of a game between the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals, a woman named Kitty Burke came to bat, the only time a woman has come to bat in a major league baseball game.              A rabid Reds fan, the beautiful nightclub blues singer had been mercilessly heckling Ducky Medwick when the Cardinals star finally yelled at her, “You couldn’t hit a pitch swinging an elephant.”  That’s when Kitty grabbed a bat and went up to the plate and challenged pitcher Paul Dean. “Hey, you hick, throw me a pitch!”  He obliged with an underhand toss, and she hit it back to the mound.

            Kitty Burke’s plate appearance didn’t count, of course, but when I read about it the other day I thought it could happen again for real. There are many good female ballplayers today; we only have to watch a televised women’s softball tournament to see them display their skills. They would have to compete with men to be signed to a professional baseball contract, but I can’t imagine they would be prevented from doing so in this age of discrimination protests.  Now I have to wonder: If a transgender woman (with male equipment) signed such a contract, could she claim to be the first female professional ballplayer?

            Why would I even ask myself such a silly question? But that’s what this whole transgender business has become. Silly. I really don’t care who comes to bat. I must admit, though, that I wish I could have been there to see Kitty Burke step up to the plate in a dress and high heels. I would have cheered for women’s rights like everybody else that day.

            Here's another related tidbit: The Kitty Burke is a drink invented by a Cincinnati mixologist who said it is for bad-ass women who think they can play better than the men they're watching on TV. Must be a favorite in many American bars.

Eagle Kill

            A 2013 wildlife study estimated that wind turbines killed about 888,000 bats and 573,000 birds in 2012 alone. Since then, wind capacity has grown 24%, not including wind farms being built in Perquimans County, NC, where I live. Should we be concerned?

            One victim in particular that should concern us is our national symbol, the bald eagle. According to Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a proposed rule change by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would extend the length of permits for accidental eagle kills from the current five years to 30 years. This would allow wind energy producers to kill or injure as many as 4,200 bald eagles every year. That’s a lot, considering there are only about 72,000 bald eagles in the continental U.S. Even worse, we won’t know the real number of kills, because the wind industry doesn’t have to report he data.

            When it comes to penalties, the Fish and Wildlife Service is looking the other way; nothing must impede progress in the development of renewable energy sources. Not so when it comes to that nasty black stuff that gets pumped out of the ground. According to Bryce, this same Fish and Wildlife Service not long ago convinced the Justice Department to file criminal indictments against three oil companies working in North Dakota’s Bakken field for inadvertently killing six ducks and one phoebe. If that’s not a double standard, I don’t know what is.

            Which brings up this question: once wind farms go into operation in our county, who will count and report on the dead bats and birds swatted out of the sky by the whirring turbines?

Absurd. Indeed

            There is a method of argumentation dating back to Greek philosophers called reduction ad absurdum. It seeks to deny the truth of an assertion by showing that it leads to an impossible conclusion. Without labelling it as such, it has been used in cartoons appearing in various media to demonstrate the absurdity of protests against North Carolina’s HB2 law. Typically, such a cartoon shows a huge, hairy man dressed in a tutu entering a girls’ locker room. Absurd? Of course it is. 

            A friend of mine asked, ”If notorious cross-dresser Dennis Rodman became the coach of a women’s basketball team, would the opponents of HB2 be right in insisting he be allowed to shower with his players?” Of course not. That’s absurd.

            And that’s just my point.  This whole controversy about HB2 is absurd. It’s absurd for entertainers like Ringo Starr to cancel a concert over it. It’s absurd for a company like Target to hurt its business over it (a boycott of its stores has started).  And it’s really an absurd overreach for our Attorney General to be equating this kerfuffel with African Americans’ struggle for civil rights in the 50s and 60s.

            It’s typical of the Left, the LGBT crowd, and the overly sensitive politically correct to scream BIGOT at every perceived hint of discrimination.  What they lack to go along with their sensitive nature is common sense. Common sense dictates that one’s sex is determined at birth and cannot be altered, short of a sex-change operation, by a desire to identify with another gender. There are ways of protecting transgenders from discrimination, but allowing them to use the bathroom of their choice is not one of them.

            I’m with Governor McCrory on this one. He is right to sue Loretta Lynch to keep her nose out of North Carolina’s business. But now the Obama administration has weighed in by directing public schools to permit transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. What about transgender teachers? Should they be permitted to do the same? What would President Obama say if Sasha came home from school one day and told him that one of her male teachers was using her bathroom?  Absurd indeed.

Sue Those Deniers

  The United States is the most litigious country in the world--by far.  Americans sue for just about any reason and have no problem finding unscrupulous lawyers to abet their greed.  In particular, frivolous suits are filed against deep-pocket companies on the expectation that these firms will settle rather than bear the cost of a lengthy trial. 
   We could greatly reduce the incidence of lawsuits by adopting the English Rule (loser pays) and by adopting award caps, as some states have in malpractice cases.  But let’s not forget that most legislators are also lawyers who are not easily persuaded to shut the spigot of cash flowing into their brethren’s coffers.  But at the very least we should expect our government to respect rights guaranteed by our Constitution.  Since when, for example, can someone be prosecuted for disagreeing with the government?  Yet, it is happening right now.
   Last year Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) called for the Justice Department to investigate climate change deniers under the RICO law written to fight organized crime.  Last month Attorney General Loretta Lynch admitted that she had asked the FBI to look into prosecution of climate change deniers for fraud.  Now we learn that prosecutors in New York, California, and the Virgin Islands have opened cases against Exxon-Mobil for just that.  The Obama administration is considering federal action, as well. 
   “Climate change is settled science,” says our President.  Nonsense.  The very nature of science is that it is always searching for greater truth.  Remember Galileo?  In the case of man-caused climate change, the truth is very much debatable.  Thus, prosecuting those whose only crime is disagreeing with the government on this issue is clearly unconstitutional and, even by the standards of the most venal politicians, wildly unethical. 
   President Obama has called climate change the country’s greatest security risk and intends his environmental policies to be his greatest legacy. I predict, rather, that he will be remembered for his assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.    

Forgetting History

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week, a splendid idea to recognize the often life-changing contributions of dedicated classroom mentors.  I haven’t been in a classroom in decades, but I haven’t forgotten a wonderful American History teacher I had in high school.  In this year of electioneering turmoil, I remember especially his series of lectures on the political process.  It is largely because of him that I developed a life-long interest in American history, although I’m sure he never intended for me to become a political junkie. 

It’s a shame that the students of today are rarely taught the relevance of history.  Our average teenager would be hard-pressed to describe the important roles played by the men whose faces appear on our currency, while the wildly enthusiastic young voters supporting Bernie Sanders demonstrate an abysmal ignorance of the dangers of Socialism or the history of its failures.  Didn’t someone say that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it? 

What a pity!  History doesn’t need to be dull or boring.  There are many historians—David McCullough is my favorite-- who can make the past come alive, and skilled filmmakers who bring images of the past to those who prefer the screen to the printed page.  Ken Burns is one filmmaker who has shown an uncanny ability to present captivating historical studies of popular topics (more than two dozen so far).  If necessarily limited by the format, these films can motivate viewers to investigate the subjects further.  But how many do? 

Social media today is the prime means of communication for our young people.  Unfortunately, tweets and Facebook are not conducive to serious inquiry, just as thumbs cannot compare with a pen as a means of expressing complex ideas.  

Will future generations look back at this era as the one in which the importance of history was irrevocably dismissed?  Worse, will future generations lose their ability to look back at all?  The metaphor that comes to mind is a young man walking briskly along while thumbing his ipad until he steps off a curb and gets hit by a bus.