Really?

What I'm about to write flows directly from my career as an English teacher.

I don't always read the Boston Globe Sports section, but because I'm interested in the coverage of the Winter Olympics, and the start of Spring Training for the Sox, I read it yesterday. The article at the top of page 1 yesterday was about the deadly luge crash. The second sentence just made me shake my head, and wonder if the Globe even employs copy editors any more, not to mention educated writers. Here's the sentence: "News of the city sent shock waves threw this city . . . . " Really? Not "through?" Somewhere, Shira Springer's high school English teacher has just turned over in her grave.

Page 2: The headline "Goodell gets five-year deal" catches my eye. The Goodell family is connected to Chautauqua, and I had met some members of the family. Roger is the NFL commissioner, which I guess is the top Executive position in the league. As I read farther into the article, I was impressed to read that a year ago Goodell voluntarily took a cut of 20-25% in his salary and that other league executives had frozen their salaries for 2009. They did all that at a point where they cut 169 jobs, which amounted to 15% of the work force. So far so good.

Just how much did Roger Goodell make last year? The next appalling sentence told me: His tax return showed $9,759,000, of which $2.9 million was salary and $6.55 million was bonus and incentive compensation. Really? I guess he could probably have afforded the cut he took. I couldn't help wondering if he and the other league executives couldn't have taken cuts large enough to cover the payroll of the 169 people they fired. But isn't that too socialist of me?

As one who never made more than $63,000 for a 50-60 hour work week, I struggle with the concept that running a football league should bring a person $2.9 million in salary, never mind the huge bonus. though I suppose his salary needs to be competitive with the ridiculous salaries that the players get paid to go out and try to damage their brains. Somehow, I think the discrepancy between the salaries of teachers (and principals) and football players and league executives says a lot about our society. And it isn't good.

Tempest in a Teapot

I have been uncharacteristically silent on political matters, and what better time to break that silence than while two groups of men are bashing their brains out on the football field???

This won't take me too long: I hope Sarah Palin runs for President. She might even make a strong ticket with Scott Brown as her running mate. Seriously. She has time to read a few magazines, write another book or two and study the globe so that she can identify places like Iran and Afghanistan and their proximity to Alaska, and I'm sure she has already learned a lot from watching tapes of her interviews with Katie Couric. We could very well expect to see an all-new Palin by 2012. Maybe even a new hair-don't.

I say you go girl. I hope you attract every wing-nut in the Tea Party movement and a few right-wing, anti-choice Democrats as well. I think the primary season in NH will be even more exciting than it was in 2008. Imagine the mainstream right wing Republicans' consternation as they try to run a campaign against Sarah in Wonderland. I'd say that potentially Barack Obama could sit back and watch the Elephants implode if the hockey mom enters the race. She could do for the Republicans what Ralph Nader, Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern have done for the Democrats on occasion. It might even be worth registering as a Republican, so I could cast my vote for SP in the NH "First-in-the-nation" primary.

Plus, just think of all the fodder for Tina Fey and SNL. It's definitely a win-win situation, don't you think?