As I sit here in the brave solitude of my remote office, I dream of better days. I dream of starting over again in a career that pays me outlandish money (in a game where most jocks play for beer), or over again in a land where foreign government handouts allow me to build a mansion in the Middle East.
I am speaking, of course, of the obscenity that is also known as free agency – basketball or hockey, take your pick (though I believe basketball is the greediest of all); I am also referring to the land of Afghanistan, where it is reputed that Afghan nationals with international ties are pocketing aid money and building mansions in Dubai.
To be sure, I am not sure who is more culpable, team owners desperate to get a winner (as opposed to the players themselves), or foreign governments who pour money into third world countries with seemingly no strings attached. If you have read this column over the past four years, you are fully aware of my angst of non-accountability.
You'd think that the way money was being recklessly thrown around, Barack Obama was running one of the NBA teams.
Whether King James goes to Chicago, Miami, or stays in Cleveland, I could care less. He can't go to the New York Knicks because they just dropped $100 million on another power forward. During this Summer of LeBron, as they have dubbed this transient season, we are still waiting for another $100 million-dollar baby, Ilya Kovalchuk, to make up his mind as to where he wishes to play hockey – New Jersey or Los Angeles. Poor baby - decisions, decisions, decisions.
Me? I'd be happy to play in Groton for a mere $500,000.
The other disturbing and correlating news I just read is about the graft in Afghanistan. As our people are literally dying for their people's freedom, some of their other people are skimming money somehow, taking it out of the country and building Roman-like villas by the seashore in the Middle East. Earning one's own money honestly, then spending it as you wish is a bedrock of the free enterprise system; taking money that is not yours and lavishing it on yourself in another country is nothing less than criminal.
The least they could do is build the mansions in their country, thereby giving their people the employment and their government and businessmen the necessary revenue.
It is really hard to digest these figures because most of us commoners will never see a fraction of that in a series of lifetimes, let alone a short five-year contract or brief spending spree. The irony is not lost here, either: Our own government is bailing out many area farmers who were wiped out in the recent floods, families have have laboured for years – possibly decades – to put food on their table. Good on them; that is money well spent.
If I were James, Wade, or Bosh, would I turn down a sizzling contract that would set me and mine up for life? Probably not. You see, I am just as fallen as any athlete, owner, government employee, or country leader. Each one of us can easily succumb to the lure of greed, and all its incumbent vices. It has brought down countless societies before us, and we will be no exception, if we're not careful.
But I don't think it is sour grapes, either, on my part. I am sincerely alarmed at an economy out of control, both stateside and elsewhere (hello Greece), on the one hand, and this sort of fraudulent, self-seeking lifestyle, on the other. Someone needs to stop this mayhem before its stops us cold.
Leaders should be aware, whether they are leading a team or leading a country: One day, they will get to the end of the proverbial rainbow, looking for an even bigger pot of gold, only to discover an empty shell of a destroyed culture.
We can't seem to control our own urges; history is one long memo of that weakness. Some day I would like develop the hypothesis that people who recognize said failing, and turn it over to the One Who made them, become the people who will make a positive difference in their world – regardless of the sphere they have been called to.
You see, they too are investing in a mansion, but it's on a different shore...
No comments:
Post a Comment