It's Super Bowl Sunday: Is the NFL Rigged?

"Ready to Launch"

As most of us are aware, money is a big part of what this event is all about. In basic economic terms, it's a matter of supply and demand. There is only one Super Bowl per year and the stadiums have a finite number of seats. As a result, tickets come at premium prices and for this year's game the average ticket costs $6,800. If you think that's a lot, last year the average ticket cost $10,000. No kidding. It was in Los Angeles, and the home team was there on the field for that one.

Then there's all the gambling revenue generated. Over-unders and all kinds of other bets can be placed. Since much of this is black market activity, it's hard to say exactly how much money is riding on the various outcomes, but one estimate is that a half billion dollars is on the line tonight.

Then you have the money pouring in from companies that spend millions on advertising at this once-a-year event. The cost for a 30 second spot seems to rise with every passing season, now in the range of five or six million dollar. Advertisers who play this game do so because there's a massive captive audience.

Advertisers do more than just advertise during the game. Most have integrated campaigns that incorporate other forms of advertising and marketing including digital and social media, product placements and branded content. The big guys can easily spend tens of millions around this singular event.

Which leads some people to believe that the NFL has a vested interest in delivering a close game that keeps viewers watching all the way to the end so that advertisers get their money's worth and return again next year.

Sometimes it seems like a lot of games hinge on a penalty call by the refs, or the lack of one. Defenders of NFL integrity correctly point out that it's only one play, so it shouldn't really matter all that much. On the other hand, a single play can shift the game's momentum in a big way. How many times have we seen a fumble, interception or missed field goal spook the crowd and turn the momentum in favor of the opposing team? Those controversial calls by the refs can produce a sea change in a tight game. 

Conspiracy theorists are quick to jump all over those bad calls, and with the megaphone of social media the doubt gets carried off like dandelion seeds whistling in the wind. Controversial calls make many people skeptical about the integrity of the league. There's also the perception that the NFL favors certain teams or players.

None of this has been proven, and the NFL bends over backward to preserve the perception that everything's above board. The problem is, when it looks like you're trying extra hard to look clean, cynics jump on this as proof that you have something to hide. 

Alas. People will believe what they want to believe, no matter what anyone says.

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As for this evening's game, it's only the 13th time the two number one seeds have come through the playoffs unscathed. Which of these will step up and dismantle the other?  Let's wait and see.

Photo: Creative Commons. Attribution: Andy Morffew 

Recent Readings and a Pew Research Study About Who Does Not Read Books in America

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."
--Ray Bradbury.

This past week I read an article on Medium about reading books and how women are reading more than men now. Not only that, but that more women are enrolled in college than men, which at one time was heavily skewed toward males.

I intended this post to be a list of my recent readings with summaries of the books I'd read, but then I decided instead to begin by drawing attention to some findings from a Pew Research study on who doesn't read books in America. Since there are many studies showing a correlation between reading,  education and wealth generation (or career empowerment), it seems that a primary aim of good parenting should go beyond making sure kids have food, shelter and a safe place to live, but should very definitely include reading, writing and 'rithmetic as basic foundation stones for a successful life, just as it was in grandma's day.  (Good social skills can be added here, too.)

All that to say, here were a few numbers from the Pew study. And again, the interesting feature here is not "who" is reading, but who is not reading.

24% of Americans have not read a book in whole or in part in the past year. In other words, reading books doesn't appear to enter their minds as something having value.

They assessed reading habits by age, income, gender, level of education attained and race. In most cases there were few surprises. More men have not read a book (25%) than women (22%), fewer whites have not read a book as compared to blacks and Hispanics. People in the lowest income bracket (under 30K/year) are three times more likely to not have read a book the previous year.

When compared to a 2016 study regarding libraries, "the same demographic traits that characterize non-book readers also often apply to those who have never been to a library." Sad.

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My apologies if it sounds like I was ranting. No doubt if you've gotten this far you are a reader, so I'd best move on.

My reading list is always longer than my available ti
me, which is probably the challenge for all avid readers and lovers of books. Here are a handful of books I've completed recently, followed by a few others that I am in the process of reading.

The Cold War's Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace
Paul Thomas Chamberlin

I read the HarperCollins audio version of this book, which was so powerful I bought the hardback and am reading it again. The audiobook is read by Grover Gardner. While reading it I kept feeling like this was the saddest book I'd ever read. My reason for this was two-fold. First, it is heartbreaking how the superpowers (Soviet Union, China, USA) are playing this global power game but the people in power moving armaments and making decisions seem unharmed by any of it while literally millions of innocent civilians are being killed, wounded, displaced. The litany of horrors committed during this "time of peace" after the last world war is mind-boggling. Second, the degree to which our own country (U.S.) was complicit in generating all this human suffering just makes one ashamed.

I strongly recommend the book because it is the first and best book that I've seen or know of that connects on the dots regarding the miscellaneous and seemingly unrelated conflicts in various parts of the world during the Cold War.

We Die Alone
David Howarth

This is another audiobook I read. (See my review of the Untold Story of the History of Talking Books) The story was originally published in 1955. It is literally an amazing story of survival in the most harrowing Arctic circumstances. It is the story of Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian who ends up in Britain to return as part of the resistance. A boat with 12 men come into the fjords on a mission, but are thwarted by the Nazis. All are captured or killed except Baalsrud, whose toe is shot off. He escapes, and must now survive.

All that (above) occurs in the very beginning of the story The rest is one challenge after another including frostbitten feet, and an assortment of other complications The writing is totally compelling. One reason I wanted to read this is that I also have a compelling survival/escape novella that I have written about a young man with a withered leg who escapes from Estonia as the Red Army is heading West at the end of WW2. 10% of the population of Estonia fled in a single wave, whic should tell you something about life under Stalin from 1940-42. If I can tell Ralph's story (Uprooted) half as well as David Howarth tells Jan Baalsrud's, then I will be happy.

Don't Quit Your Day Job
Michael Fedo

The full title is Don’t Quit Your Day Job: The Adventures of a Midlist Author.  s a memoir recounting the five-decade writing career of Michael Fedo, whose books have not attained best-seller status, despite receiving mostly favorable reviews in publications such as The New York Times, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, among others. What follows here are a few excerpts from my review of the book on Amazon.

The book is essentially an overview of Mr. Fedo’s life as a writer, but it’s written in such a way as to provide good lessons all along the way. Each story has a purpose and though it is a book for writers, it would be useful for many other careers in the creative arts.

His first chapter, Authorities and Experts May Be Wrong, is a lesson I learned myself and have written about more than once. “Who Are Your Experts?” is something everyone has to address at various points in a career. We are shaped by those whom we listen to, and sometimes we don’t have enough experience to recognize the difference between good and bad advice.

Though primarily a book for writers, each chapters contains lessons for writers, I think others might enjoy reading about his life in the writing biz. He writes in an easy-going style that would make this book worth reading the most valuable one being to make sure you can pay your bills before you launch into the deep. It's a memoir designed to be both entertaining and instructive.

Read my blog post about his writing workshop and the reading he gave from this book.

The Year of Less
Cait Flanders

Amazon version has livelier cover.

The full title is actually, The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life Is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store.
It's a short book with a promising title, related to several other book I've read about simplifying one's life and reducing clutter. Unfortunately, I didn't care that much for the reader. (The author.) She's a blogger whose primary theme seems to be her self. The book essentially documents her efforts to live on less and the lessons she learns along the way. One reviewer on Amazon (who liked the book) wrote, "This book isn't about minimalism or decluttering (although it will inspire you to pursue those goals!), it's about living with less, consuming less, and ultimately needing less." Another wrote, "To the uninitiated: trust your instinct to "buy less" and pass on this." I almost quit the book two or three times, but plowed through anyways.

My biggest problem was that I was unable to relate to a person who "buys things" to make herself feel better while racking up massive credit card debt. By shopping to make oneself happy, I am referring to replacing all the furniture in the living room, clothes, etc to the tune of $30,000. There were a few good insights early on and I thought there would be more. As a blogger she has built a following who apparently enjoys her transparency and candor. For the wider public, it should have been an article in a magazine.

CURRENTLY READING
I have a number books in mid-stream. Some I will write about in the future, one I already wrote about but need to finish.

The Unexpected Gambler
Robert Asiel

This book and the next are about guys who learned how to win by cheating, as in power or dice games. Asiel went to Las Vegas as a 17-year-old and became a poker dealer at a casino at which time he learned that the casinos were also crooked. (EdNote: It's my understanding that things have changed because the odds already favor the casinos and they do not have to cheat to rake in the dough.) Asiel subtitled his book, A History of Casinos Cheating the Public and One Gambler's Revenge. It sounds like a self-rationalization to me, but most of us spend a lifetime justifying one form of bad behavior or another.

Robert Asiel went to Vegas in the 60s, while the casinos were still mob run. Later in life he was all over the country and did a lot of cruise ship hustling as gambling opened up everywhere. In the end he was wanted by the FBI, but not before he'd lived a life of adventure. Like Fast Jack (below) he did finally get nailed and spent time in the pen. The book will likely surprise you at the games people play.

Fast Jack: The Last Hustler
John Farrell

One of the more interesting places to hear good stories is from the cab drivers in Las Vegas. On my first trip the Las Vegas our cabby told about how far downhill Vegas had gone since the corporates took over and the mob no longer ran the casinos. We asked for an explanation and he said in the old days you lose all your money at the gaming tables and the casino would put you up for the night and pay for your ticket to get home. "Not any more," he said You lose all your money and the send you packing.

Fast Jack was born in 1937 so he came of age in the Fifties. He learned all the tricks of the hustler's trade and then took them to another level. As a card and dice mechanic is also learned the risks involved, including being beat up, shot at and doing time. He wrote his memoir because the world has changed. In the old days most gambling was a private matter. The hustlers knew where the action was. Nowadays, casinos, riverboats and cruise ships are everywhere.
At age 80, Jack's dice moves are still astonishing. Here's a video with no special effects showing off some Fast Jack dice mechanics.
Here's a podcast of Fast Jack being interviewed on Maria Konnikova's show Grift.

An End to Upside Down Thinking
Mark Gober

The subtitle of this book is Dispelling the Myth That the Brain Produces Consciousness, and the Implications for Everyday Life.  Gober's book is essentially an assault on the arrogant assumptions of science, specifically as it pertains to materialism. The notion that consciousness could evolve from matter did not make sense and he began to explore this problem in greater detail. He learned that this area of science is one of the biggest stumbling blocks and is still not yet resolved.

Though I'd not finished the book yet, I wrote a review earlier this month and interviewed the author afterward.

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Aren't books amazing? There are so many varieties of books, and so many stories still to be told.

What have you been reading lately? I hope it's good.

Returning to Earth

"It's the stupid hope of getting something for nothing that corrupts people." ~ Donald Burkett, in Jim Harrison's Returning to Earth, commenting on gambling.

This weekend I started reading Jim Harrison's compelling sequel to True North called Returning to Earth. It's the story of a half breed Chippewa-Finnish man dying of Lou Gehrig's disease, told in first person by both himself and his wife.

All the great novelists aspire to writing something with a timeless significance that expresses something more than the pedantic day-to-day. You can tell from the start that Harrison has succeeded in creating a story that will compel us to face the big picture questions that torment the private spaces of human hearts. That's the real achievement of the great books, to create a context for exploration of these deeper life issues.

Harrison's earlier novellas include the silver screen achievement Legends of the Fall, starring Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt, a story bigger than life and revealing of both its expanse and depth.

While listening to the unabridged audio version of the book this quote about gambling jumped out at me. I would say it "jumped from the page" if I were reading a regular book, and upon hearing it I pulled over to write it on a scrap of paper as a start point to this sequence of thoughts.

Gambling is a great deception. Donald Burkett learned this early in life, after a significant losing hand. It is not a central theme in the book, mentioned only in passing, but it is a sharp insight. How is it that our tax dollars, then, are being used to promote this deceptive tactic by advertising lotto, Powerball games, state lotteries and the like? Should not the government be on the side of truth and virtue? It's shameful and sad that our own tax dollars are being devoted to studying human behavior to determine which games of chance will most successfully pull greenbacks out of poor peoples' wallets, for it is the poor and ignorant who are most vulnerable to these enticements.

Where is the outrage? Why do our leaders claim to be on the side of the poor while simultaneously supporting an activity that preys on their false hopes and is mathematically arranged to insure that they lose?

Have you ever met anyone who bought a house with winnings from gambling? I have known two who lost their homes from gambling losses. One was through a Saturday night bingo habit which led to bankruptcy.

I have a friend who says the purpose of Powerball is to make poor people less hateful of the rich, because if they win the Powerball they will be rich at some point. The notion strikes me a bizarre, but maybe there’s something to it. No one likes being hated, and that probably applies to the rich and powerful as much as anyone. Giving a poor man the hope that he might be a peer someday, even if it’s a false hope, just might be the ticket.

As for Jim Harrison, the setup is good and I look forward to finishing my read.