As the first game ended (Chicago lost) Dahl, dressed in an army outfit complete with a helmet entered the field to lead the crowd in chants of “disco sucks.” After the requisite countdown, he hit the button that triggered the explosives and then,all hell broke loose. As the crate exploded, it ripped a huge hole in the outfield and small fires began burning. The fans—maybe powered more by their hatred of disco than their love of the White Sox—then began storming the field. The rioting mob lit more fires, destroyed a batting cage and stole pieces of the field itself. Banners were burned and the destruction was pretty much aimless until police began chasing people of the field. It took police in riot gear to regain order and 39 people were arrested.
The second game was not played due to the condition of the field, but even if the field had been fixable, Detroit’s manager, the legendary Sparky Anderson, refused to allow his team back on the field anyway due to concerns for their safety. Ultimately, Major League Baseball declared the game a forfeit and awarded the victory to the Tigers.
Ten Cent Beer Night
Sports fans tend to get drunk and rowdy at a regular game which makes one wonder what the Cleveland Indians were thinking on June 4, 1974 when they offered fans as many beers as they could drink for a dime. This, of course, was a stupendously bad idea as usually the only thing stopping fans from drinking themselves blind was the famously high cost of buying beers at the ballpark.
As the game wore on, the crowd became more and more drunk. This made it increasingly difficult for the umpires to maintain order. Multiple instances of streakers and flashers as well as multiple moonings, not to mention the fighting in the stands, ultimately forced umpires to call off the game. Unfortunately, before the game could be called, large numbers of fans who had armed themselves with whatever was available (bats, chairs, beer bottles and more) started to destroy the stadium. When this spilled over onto the actual field, the game was cancelled. The bases were stolen (and never found) and significant damage was done to the stadium.
MEDIA & POLITICS
36
Politically Getting Ahead of Yourself: Perhaps That Mission Wasn’t Exactly Accomplished
Politicians love to make promises and they love to tell us how successful they are in delivering on those promises. Usually this involves standing up at a podium and bragging about how many jobs they have created and how fabulous the economy has become. Of course, while these speeches are going on many of us are sitting at home unemployed, not exactly feeling the benefits of this so-called new, improved economy.
Whether it’s touting their success with the economy or telling us the many ways their actions have benefitted us, politicians love to speak before we can accurately judge the veracity of their statements. It’s easy to stand before the American people and tell us what you have done. It’s infinitely harder to actually show us and, sometimes, though the politician tells us he did a good job or succeeded in meeting his goals, the truth turns out to be, well, less so.
Perhaps the most famous example of a politician speaking too soon was on May 1, 2003, when then president George W. Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a giant banner that declared “mission accomplished.” The mission which had supposedly been accomplished was the successful conclusion of the war in Iraq. In his speech Bush talked about how major combat operations had come to an end and the need for troops would soon be gone. The war was over, he more or less said—we just had to clean up some guerilla operations by some rowdy Iraqis and we could bring our boys home, content in the knowledge that we had won the war bringing the Iraqi people the freedom the so richly desirer and deserved. Sure, there never were any actual weapons of mass destruction, but ‘Old Georgie had done all right anyway.
That would make a lot of sense if the war in Iraq had ended anytime in say the next few months. Unfortunately for the president, a man somewhat famous for putting his foot into his mouth and saying dumb things, the war did not end quite that quickly. In fact, the war in Iraq did not end during Bush’s presidency, which continued for another whole term. And, despite Bush declaring that major combat operations had come to an end, the vast majority of American casualties actually occurred after the “mission accomplished” speech.
Though nobody knew just how preposterous declaring that the war was over in May of 2003, Bush’s speech was met with derision from almost the second it was delivered. Instead of simply giving a speech, the president had decided to take a victory lap and landed in a jet on the aircraft carrier as if he was a professional wrestler making an entrance. This needless stunt was criticized heavily as being dangerous, expensive and ultimately unnecessary as Bush could have made the trip by helicopter. Still, if that excess had been the worst blunder of the day, nobody would remember the speech.
Instead, the event became a touchstone for Democrats and made the never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan key points in the eventual political tide that would make it possible for a largely unknown African American Senator to take the White House, leading his party to sweeping gains in Congress. Of course, those gains would be lost two years later partially because like his predecessor who declared “mission accomplished,” Barack Obama could not get American troops out of Iraq.
After this speech, which has been lampooned on every late-night show and by comics, radio hosts and anyone else who sees the absurdity of declaring an end to a war that still hadn’t ended eight years later, Bush actually moved more troops in Iraq. Instead of accomplishing any sort of mission, Bush actually managed to make things worse in that the only thing propping up Iraqi society remains American troops. Without Saddam Hussein and his centralized evil, Iraq would quickly become a frontier of localized evil where petty dictators and warlords rule the day. If that was the goal, then, well, “mission accomplished,” otherwise, some work remains to be done.
37
Stupid, Lying Politicians: Sometimes, You Just Have to Admit You Were Caught
Politicians, at least some of them, have no hesitations when it comes to lying to the American people. Usually, these lies are about what they plan to do in office, “I’m going to lower taxes,” or “I will demand that the troops be brought home,” and, though we may not believe them, there’s no real way to prove that the person actually lied. Sometimes, though, a politician will get caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar (or perhaps with his pants around his ankles) and his instinct tells them to lie and everything will be better. This, of course, never works and has resulted in some of the more ridiculous political scandals of all time.
Perhaps the worst of these would be John Edwards blatantly lying to the public while running for president while his wife battled cancer. Before his scandal the public largely thought of Edwards as a prissy rich guy who got $200 haircuts before taking a limousine ride to his club. And, while Edwards had a reputation as an elitist, his wife Elizabeth was perceived as the ideal political wife. Pretty—at least for politics—Mrs. Edwards was the picture of a perfect parent, who supported her husband, had dinner on the table and a scotch on one those little serving trays ready when he walked through the door. She was well-liked by the American people largely because she stayed in the background and let her husband be the star. She was popular more because of what we didn’t know about her than what we did, but she was popular nonetheless.
Under those circumstances that would make it a pretty bad idea for John to cheat on her in general. Throw in the fact that she was also dealing with terminal lung cancer and cheating on her becomes akin to drowning a sack of kittens in front of a group of little girls then shooting the girls for crying.
But, as foolish as John Edwards was for cheating on his wife, his true idiocy comes from the fact that he was having an affair and fathering a love child behind his cancer-stricken wife’s back, while running for president. Short of being a performance artist who lives in a glass house, there is probably no more visible position than candidate for president. Not only are you watched by an enormous amount of med
ia, you are also thoroughly investigated by your opponents. It’s a bad idea to run for president while hiding an unpaid parking ticket, but doing it while trying to conceal marital infidelity is extremely foolish.
Of course, this has happened before, but when Gary Hart was caught cheating on his wife while not only running for president, but leading the race for his party’s nomination, tabloid coverage of candidates barely existed. Now, with the Internet and the prevalence of cell phones, Hart would never have brazenly snuck off for some monkey business on the Monkey Business with Donna Rice. At least in Hart’s case, we didn’t know who his wife was so he was just a regular jerk guilty of infidelity.
Like Hart, when first confronted with evidence of his affair, Edwards lied. As rumors of a love child started swirling, Edwards continued to lie until basically the media trotted out the woman he had been cheating with (along with her child, who Edwards had, in fact, fathered). Edwards lied as long as it was possible, making him not only guilty of being a jerk, but being a special kind of lying jerk—one so arrogant and insensitive that he cheated on his wife and fathered a child with his mistress while his wife took care of the kids and tried not to die.
Also employing the Edwards deny and lie strategy was former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford who we have to thank for forever making “hiking the Appalachian Trail” a euphemism for having an affair. On June 18 through June 24, 2009 Sanford, then still a sitting governor, simply disappeared. His wife had no idea where he was nor did the State Law Enforcement Division, which was essentially the Secret Service for South Carolina’s governor. The governor did tell his staff he would be hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but concerns were raised when he did not answer 15 phone calls from his chief of staff and further alarms went up when he failed to call his family on Father’s Day.
That might be because Sanford was not in fact hiking, he was instead spotted at an airport arriving on a flight from Argentina where he had been having an affair with a local woman. Instead of simply begging forgiveness, when Sanford ultimately confessed, he instead professed his love for that mistress.
As a Republican governor who preached the traditional right-wing, God and family agenda, Sanford might have been forgiven an extramarital affair. Had he come clean from the get go and both admitted his mistake and acted apologetic, he might have been able to dust himself off and live to fight another day. Instead, Sanford did the one thing you can’t do when admitting to an affair and attempting to repair your image—he claimed to be in love. Once you use the “L” word, you can no longer claim you were tempted or that you made a mistake. Once you say “love,” you’re a scumbag who has no respect for your wife or the institution of marriage. That might be okay if you’re a rock star or an actor, but most certainly not if you are a Republican governor.
Before South Carolina and the rest of the nation knew what a jerk Sanford was, we first had to wonder if he had died while hiking. As the story first broke, nobody considered that the governor was jetting off for a romantic getaway in Argentina, instead we were worried that he had gone hiking and had somehow become lost on the trail.
South Carolina’s Lieutenant Govern Andre Bauer initially voiced concerns over Sanford’s behavior and he publicly announced that announced that he could not “take lightly that his staff has not had communication with him for more than four days, and that no one, including his own family, knows his whereabouts.”
Senate Minority Leader, Democrat John Land voiced the same concerns over Sanford’s absence and openly questioned its timing. “It’s one thing for the boys to go off by themselves,” he said, “but on Father’s Day to leave your family behind? That’s erratic.”
At this point though, people were either just worried about the governors safety or scoring political points from his apparent irresponsibility. Nobody considered that he might be part of an elaborate ruse to sneak away for a few days so he could cheat on his wife.
The concern over Sanford’s whereabouts, however, led people to actually go looking for him. He might have actually gotten away it, but when he arrived back at Atlanta International Airport he was met by a single reporter, The State’s Gina Smith who had received a tip that the governor was in Argentina. On a hunch, she guessed that he would have to fly back through Atlanta and her hunch turned out to break the whole story wide open as within a few hours, the governor held a press conference when he admitted that the hiking trip was a lie. He would also, in the next few days, call the woman he was cheating with his “soul mate,” pretty much dooming his political career if his bizarre lies had not already done that.
Sanford also made the mistake of denying that he had used public funds to pay for his love trysts when it was later proven that he actually had. This led to an overall investigation of Sanford’s use of public funds which revealed a variety of improprieties including the alleged use of a state planes to fly to get a haircut.
Somehow, though, Sanford did not resign from office, nor was he impeached. Because he was ineligible to run for reelection due to term limits and the fact that Bauer, the man who would replace him were he to step down or be forced out, was also a controversial figure, he was allowed to finish his term, which ended in January 2011.
38
AOL and Time Warner Merge: Making Way Less with More
Though it seems unfathomable in retrospect, America Online (AOL) once ruled the fledgling Internet world. The company which sold dial-up Internet service essentially was the Internet for nearly twenty million Americans. The company, which emerged as the winner over other early dial-up providers like CompuServe and Prodigy essentially had a license to print money. That said, that license clearly had an expiration date as either sooner or later, most of the country would move to broadband connection, making dial-up and AOL obsolete.
Unlike Yahoo!, Amazon.com, or Google, which would become better products as Americans got faster Internet access, AOL would literally become unnecessary. No more dial-up connection meant no more people paying $19.95 a month to AOL, not to mention no more captive audience to sell to advertisers.
No dummy, AOL’s then CEO Steve Case knew he needed to become a content provider or somehow diversify his offering beyond dial-up Internet service. AOL may have been worth billions of dollars, but that valuation was tied to a core product rapidly approaching its expiration date.
Fortunately for AOL, Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin only noticed that AOL had twice Time Warner’s valuation with less than half the cash flow. The Internet was the future, and pesky details like making money and a rapidly eroding core customer base would be problems that solve themselves through the magic of the stock market. When the merger happened, few if anyone, in the media questioned the deal even though Time Warner was essentially bringing in all the assets but would be the junior partner in the deal.
Originally valued at $350 billion, the merger quickly led to disaster as the two companies learned they were not as synergistic as they thought, and that simply buying an Internet company did not make your old-media products modern. Though it was originally hailed as being a landmark deal and widely praised, the bloom quickly fell off the rose, and only a few months after the merger, in May of 2000, signs of impending doom started to appear.
At first, it was simply a drop in online advertising—which was happening to everyone due to the dot-com bubble bursting. Then, AOL began losing subscribers at a growing rate, and the upcoming dominance of broadband Internet seemed obvious. It was also discovered during this time period that AOL had falsely inflated its advertising revenue (they ultimately paid a huge fine), which led to its high valuation in the first place. While this was happening, efforts to combine the two companies were not going well as they had decidedly different cultures.
As things continued to get worse, AOL/Time Warner shed value almost as fast as it shed employees. Ted Turner, who had sold his company to Time Warner previously, lost 80 percent of his net worth—approximately $8 billion—and countless others lost millions. This included many
AOL paper millionaires—early employees who had stayed with the company, amassing stock options worth millions at one point. As the merged company’s stock sank, many of these folks not only lost their jobs, they watched their nest eggs disappear.
The two companies stayed one until 2009, when Time Warner realized that it was better off not owning AOL than owning it. Of course, during that time, the environment changed again, and Time Warner’s traditionally successful properties were battered by the sinking economy.
Once again an independent company, AOL has struggled to reinvent itself as a content provider. In 2010, the company launched hundreds of local news sites under the Patch banner, but so far, their efforts have been all money out and very little money in. Suffice to say, both companies and thousands of people were hurt by the ill-fated merger. Though values of course fluctuate, when the failure was finally admitted and the two companies separated, their combined worth was less than one-seventh of what it was when the merger occurred. It seems sometimes, one plus one actually equals zero.
39
Esperanto: The Language for Everyone as Used By No One
The idea of a universal language spoken by people all over the globe has been central to science fiction pretty much since that genre has existed. In the Star Wars universe, no matter what species a character was, they could at least understand “basic.” Chewbacca may lack the vocal chord requirements to speak to Han Solo, but he could understand everything his human pal said because they shared this universal language.
Worst Ideas Ever Page 10
