Zirin rightfully chastises uncompromising free-market ideologues who happily accept social welfare. Now, if he could only...
Nation sports writer Zirin (People’s History of Sports in the United States, 2008, etc.) continues his sports-themed muckraking with a blistering screed against the owners of major U.S. sports teams.
As sports increasingly become big business, the men who fund America’s major-league football, baseball, basketball and hockey teams have gained considerable influence. The author calls out these deep-pocketed billionaires for an extensive array of moral and ethical crimes, ranging from bilking taxpayers to build new stadiums (and offering nothing in return) to using their teams to promote right-wing religious and political agendas. He makes a compelling case that publicly funded stadiums rarely, if ever, benefit a community. He cites three damning examples: New Orleans, where Katrina victims huddled in the publicly funded Superdome while neglected levees gave way; Minneapolis, where a groundbreaking ceremony for a new stadium was sheepishly cancelled after the collapse of a decrepit bridge killed 13 people; and Washington, D.C., where politicians committed $1 billion of public money for a baseball stadium despite enduring the district’s highest poverty level in a decade. Zirin caustically, almost gleefully, castigates notorious owners, including the dictatorial George Steinbrenner (New York Yankees), the housing slumlord Donald Sterling (Los Angeles Clippers), the Napoleonic Daniel Snyder (Washington Redskins) and the misogynistic beneficiary of nepotism James Dolan (New York Knicks). Overall, the author’s arguments hit the mark, though he occasionally confuses personal bêtes noires with righteous anger on behalf of the masses, such as when he rails against owners’ religious and political affiliations. He also heaps praise on the utopian public-ownership model of the Green Bay Packers, but offers no other hopes for a working alternative. It’s hard to believe that he couldn’t find at least one socially benevolent owner—Mark Cuban? Robert Kraft?—to profile.
Zirin rightfully chastises uncompromising free-market ideologues who happily accept social welfare. Now, if he could only make them listen.Pub Date: July 20, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5475-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf