It’s time for baseball in Springfield
I have been following the debate surrounding the Pawtucket Red Sox (AAA affiliate of Boston Red Sox) and the efforts to build a new $85 million dollar baseball stadium in Providence. Rhode Island House Speaker Nicolas Mattiello hired Smith College economics professor Andrew Zimbalist, an expert on the subject of public financing of sports stadiums. The Providence deal would cost the taxpayers $4 million per year over 30 years. There has been a lot of public opposition to the proposal. There could be a case for Springfield with MGM to make a play for the team if the Providence deal falls through. First, MGM has a business relationship with the Red Sox and Fenway Sports Group. Second, as noted by WPRI local reporter Ted Nesi who wrote on May 16, “the most interesting option may be Springfield. Springfield is 90 minutes away from Fenway Park. It hasn’t hosted professional baseball in 50 years. And it provides a plausible source of private capital: MGM, which is building an $800 million resort casino there. The company already provided the land for a minor-league stadium outside its Biloxi facility, and the business case is reasonable — it would put thousands of people at the casino’s doors 72 or so nights a year.”
There was even a recent conceptual drawing of what a stadium could look like on the site of the Peter Pan Bus Terminal and The Republican where Penn National was to locate. There was a push in the ’90s to bring baseball to Springfield. This could be their chance to finally get a deal that wouldn’t require a significant public investment and could help transform the city in a positive way.
If it’s good enough for the president …
Last Tuesday, President Obama directed federal agencies to serve antibiotic-free meat and poultry in government cafeterias. The Food and Drug Administration will require animal producers to obtain authorization from a licensed veterinarian to use drugs to treat a specific disease, rather than just to promote rapid growth, as is current practice. As much as 80 percent of all U.S. antibiotics are used in animal agriculture.
The moves come amid growing concern about the link between routine antibiotic use in animal agriculture and human infections by bacteria that have developed resistance to antibiotics because of their excessive use. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that antibiotic resistance causes 2 million illnesses per year in the U.S. and 23,000 deaths. It also creates $20 billion per year in health care costs and $35 billion in lost productivity. And we thought that animal products were just linked to heart disease, cancer, and stroke. While government agencies reduce antibiotics in animal products, the rest of us can do better immediately with wholesome vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains and a rich variety of plant-based meats, cheeses, milks, and ice creams available in every supermarket. These foods contain all the nutrients we require, without the deadly pathogens, antibiotics, carcinogens, cholesterol, and saturated fats.
A bygone education
(This comment appeared at www.valleyadvocate.com on “From Our Readers, May 28- June 3, 2015.” It is a response to a letter by William Santy that says there has been a shift in higher education away from classical texts and towards Marxism.)
William Santy writes, “Decades ago the great books approach to education introduced college students to the thoughts and world view of great thinkers such as Aristotle, Cicero, C.S. Lewis and Chesterton.” I am not sure what pristine moment and place that Mr. Santy so rhapsodizes about, what lost golden era of learning he wishes to lament. Perhaps it is the University of Alabama in the 1950s, a bastion of racial segregation, the pinnacle of whites-only football. Or maybe Mr. Santy looks back at some Great Gatsby version of Yale where a “classical” education included not merely Cicero and Aristotle, but the rules of social stratification with quotas for Jews. Mr. Santy’s complaints about the Marxist bogeyman would be so much more compelling if he were to specify where and when he wishes to time-travel back to.
