I'm all set for vacation in Chapel Hill. Got my car and motel reservations. After learning Carolina Inn's summer special rate of "only" $109 per night, I made reservations at the Red Roof Inn. Even without the special rate it's only $38/night. Adding that to the cost of the car and plane ticket, the whole thing will run me about 650 bucks plus however much seven days worth of bagels costs.

All I have to do now is hope that the station doesn't screw with my vacation by pulling me off of it to send me to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA which it might do if some team from Manatee County south of Tampa wins its game tonight. The Little League World Series is the one in which 18-year old Asian kids with phony birth records pummel our regulation aged 12-year old Americans on ABC-TV every year.

We shouldn't be putting 12 year old baseball players on national television. I believed this long before any of my travel plans might have been ruined by it. It was confirmed for me when I once saw ESPN interview a player live after one of the preliminary games. I mean, it's not bad enough that ESPN is showing one of the preliminary games, now I've got to hear from the heroes afterward.

I've interviewed 12-year old kids before. Few of them have anything interesting to say in a soundbite. Of course, I've also interviewed Major League baseball players and you can say the same thing about many of them.

That's not my point. My point is that we shouldn't be putting kids of that age under that kind of scrutiny just for playing sports, even if they welcome it. It attaches an importance to athletics that it doesn't deserve and warps not only the players' perspectives on how important sports should be in the world but also does so for anyone watching.

I bet we had someone from our area make it to the national spelling bee (Boy, I hope I spelled that right.) in Washington, D.C. I also bet that the station didn't send anyone to cover that.

What's the message we send there?

I'll leave you with that as I send this message.

John

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