Collective Bargaining Agreement (No...Not Bill 5)

While working on an assignment for business law, I began to compare the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in the National Football League (NFL) to our relationship as students to our teachers and administrators. For those of you who may not know, the CBA is the agreement that the player’s union signs with owners of the NFL to ensure that they will be treated fairly. The CBA is currently being re-negotiated and there are several divisive issues between the two sides and because the two sides disagree on so many issues, there is the possibility that a CBA that satisfies both sides cannot be crafted. The absence of a CBA would then prevent the next NFL season from taking place. The NFL generates more revenue than other sports league in the world, so the idea of losing an entire year of profits for the players and owners has become an issue of importance in the sports world. Each year, the NFL earns approximately 8.5 billion dollars from advertising, ticket sales, and TV networks.

For the sake of this comparison, we will consider the students at Chagrin Falls High School to be the player’s union and we will consider the teachers and administrators to be the owners in the NFL. The major issue in the NFL is how to divide the profits between the players and the owners. Of course, like all human beings, both sides feel they deserve more than the majority of the revenue. The money involved in the NFL is like the distribution of grades in high school. Students always want to get an A and they feel they deserve an A in most cases. Teachers, however, cannot give A’s out to every single student. Instead, teachers must keep some of the A’s to themselves because otherwise an A would not mean nearly as much if everyone gets one. Another issue with the NFL is that the owners want the players to play an 18 game season (which would be 2 more games than the current 16 game season). This is similar to how Ted Strickland wanted to make the students go to school for 20 more days each year. I am actually in favor of this movement from the NFL and from the state of Ohio because first, I want to see more football, and second, I think students need to go to school more and become more educated. Granted, it is easier for me to say this because I will not be in school after this June. The third major issue with the NFL CBA is the rookie salary cap, which would limit how much money a rookie can make when he first comes into the league. Currently, rookies are coming in to the league and signing contracts worth five or ten times as much as the veteran players and the rookies have not yet proven themselves at the professional level. In almost all other jobs, salary increases with performance and experience. The comparison to a rookie salary cap is a cap on the amount of homework we are given each night. As a rookie, or a seventh grader, we would have a cap of say, 2 hours of homework each night. Then as we move up grades, that cap increases and eventually as seniors, we have no cap on the amount of homework we can be given. I have seen some articles that present evidence that students become too worn out with school if they are given to much homework at an early age. The last thing we want to do as a society is burn out our children before they get to college or graduate school. However, it is a very difficult situation because we also want to make sure that children are being thoroughly educated from a young age. What are your thoughts on this issue? Or any of the other topics presented? I hope you learned a little bit about the CBA in the NFL that occupies so much time on ESPN and many other sports channels.

Roger Goodell (Commisioner of NFL)         DeMaurice Smith (Head of Player's Union)

Paper v. Data Sheet (A Case for Chief Justice Roberts)

Less time, more thinking, NO A

The Nine Billion Dollar Business

In the hours leading up to the biggest sports event of the year in the United States, I had watched too much analysis of the two teams. Tom Jackson and Cris Carter were being more thorough than Truman Capote describing the characters of In Cold Blood. The analysts on ESPN had talked for hours and even broke down the game film from a meeting between the Steelers and Packers from two years ago. This is why when I switched the channel to FOX, I was thrilled to see a short video segment about the Declaration of Independence. Not only was this a nice rest from the breakdown of the two opposing organizations, but also, as a patriot, I was obviously very anxious. As the self-proclaimed conservative media outlet in America, FOX prides itself on being labeled as devout patriots. For this reason, I was not shocked to see FOX attempt to portray themselves as a station that simply loves America. Although it was a bit ironic since this video piece followed Bill O’Reilly’s rude and obnoxious treatment of President Obama. However, for those of you who were not glued to the television for over seven hours on Sunday, the video clip starts out with General Colin Powell and Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, praising the brave men who drafted the Declaration of Independence. The two men commended the fifty-six revolutionaries who fought for the inherent rights of man at a time when doing so could get them killed by the red coats. They described the Declaration as the document that defied the monarchy and pledged that the pursuit of happiness is endowed to every man. Just based from the background of my blog, you can imagine how I was feeling while watching this video. As the video continues, it shows different NFL players, coaches, and legends reading the exact words of the Declaration. Soldiers, impoverished young children, or some other type of patriotic backdrop surrounds the different celebrities while they read. As the video continued, I forced everyone around me to quiet down and stop talking so that I could fully enjoy this piece. It ends up that the NFL and FOX dedicate the video to the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this great nation. This video rallied the patriotic fervor inside of me as I readied myself to watch the big game. However, I find it a little funny that FOX and the NFL ran this video in the half hour before kick-off because it seems to be an attempt to just give themselves some positive publicity before the public gets upset at the inordinate amounts of money spent on the super bowl and especially the commercials. Whatever the reasoning may be, I was happy that the television station wanted to remind people why they should feel proud to be an American. Maybe you thought it was cheesy? But personally, I like the attempt to remind viewers why America is so great.

Roger Goodell

Colin Powell

One commercial in particular from the super bowl really made a lasting impression on me. The Chrysler commercial that features Detroit and Eminem was just as inspiring as the video about the Declaration of Independence. The two-minute commercial begins with different camera shots around the city of Detroit. To highlight the fact that Chrysler is produced within our own borders, the masculine narrator states, “Now we’re from America” at the same time Eminem is riding in the drivers seat of this sleek new Chrysler coupe and his motivational beat of “Lose Yourself” is playing in the background while he has a look of poise and determination with one hand nonchalantly hanging over the top of the steering wheel. The commercial ends dramatically with a black screen and the words, “Imported From Detroit.” I loved this commercial because it again inspires a feeling of patriotism and a sense of pride about America. I thought it was worth every Benjamin to put in on the air. Super bowl commercials cost three million dollars for thirty seconds so if you do the math, that means Chrylser paid twelve million dollars to air this commercial. Do you think that this is absolutely ridiculous? I think it is simply capitalism at its finest but let me know what you think about the cost of the super bowl or the Declaration of Independence video, or Eminem’s commercial.

Eminem

The Upper Class Character

Amsterdam is an exciting book to read for me because of the place in society that the author chooses to put each character. I am not trying to sound like I enjoy reading books about upper class people because as a student from Chagrin I think I can relate to them better. No, that is not true at all. The reason that I really enjoy reading about these characters is because they are in a position of more significance in society than any of the other characters in the books we have discussed in our junior and senior years and it is exciting to read about such well-known people. These are people that we are largely unfamiliar with, but we always read about or watch on the news. It is intriguing to get an inside look at some of their lives and behavior, at least from the perspective of Ian McEwan. The reason that I can more easily relate to these characters is because the book is set in the past ten to twelve years (at least so far). It is much easier to understand the culture and social atmosphere of England in the year 2000 than it is to try to relate to the environment of the Deep South during the times of slavery. I understand that because I can more easily relate to this book, it actually probably is not as beneficial to read because I do not learn about the inner workings of a time period I am unfamiliar with. But, it does make it more fun to read. I would like to go back to the previous statement that the characters are in position of more significance than any of our other novels we have read as a class. Everyone’s definition of significance is different, for Carolyn it might be whoever can hug the most trees, for me it might be whoever can improve the education of American children. But for the purpose of this blog, we will consider characters in a novel significant if they are well known in their country and if their lives can immediately impact thousands of others. In the novels (excluding plays) that we have read and thoroughly discussed in class, we have not been exposed to characters like we see in Amsterdam.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl – We learn about the life of a slave woman as she escapes from the American South.

Into the Wild – Although we see small doses of an upper-middle class life, the novel predominantly focuses on Chris McCandless’s isolation from society.

Angela’s Ashes – We learn about the poverty and squalor of the lower classes of Ireland in the fairly recent past.

In Cold Blood – We look at a murder of a family that is relatively insignificant by two murderers who are largely unknown.

The Namesake – This is the first book where we get to read from the perspective of an upper-middle class lifestyle. But still, these characters are not nearly as significant in the United States as the characters in Amsterdam.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Obviously the characters here are not significant people in America because they are patients in an insane asylum and have failed in the real world.

In Amsterdam the author focuses on five main characters, at least thus far.

Vernon – The editor of a popular newspaper in England.

George – A wealthy businessman with connections in all of the social circles of the elite people in the United Kingdom.

Clive – An extremely famous composer that has Yo-Yo Ma and Jimi Hendrix stay in his house.

Molly – A famous woman who was high in the ranks of the popular magazine, Vogue.

Garmony – The foreign secretary for England and a potential candidate for the Prime Minister position.

Clearly, we have not been exposed to characters like we see in Amsterdam so I find it very refreshing and exciting to read this book about a new realm. Of course, this book will probably end in sadness, just like all of the other ones, but at least I will enjoy learning about this new type of character.

How do you feel about this new breed of character?

Yo-Yo Ma

Jimi Hendrix