While Rome Burns

As the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations continue, and begin to spread to other streets, I continue to be impressed by their tenacity if not their cohesion. The most recent reports of unrest in Boston, Philadephia, St. Louis, and San Francisco attest to the surging unrest among the "ninety-nine percent." It is, for many, reminiscent of another time. My mother talked with me over the weekend about the times she has seen the people rise up during her lifetime. Riots and protests are nothing new to her: the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, Opposition to the war in Vietnam. Change has come, but never quickly.
Flip the channel to sports: National Basketball Association Commisioner David Stern announced that the owners and players are are still separated by a "gulf." That meant that he was forced to cancel the first two weeks' games of the season. Stern said he was "sorry" and "sad" to announce the cancellation. I suspect that the owners and players are "sorry" and "sad" as well. That means that some of these people might slip down into the ninety-nine percent. The salary for an incoming rookie in the NBA is more than four hundred thousand dollars a year. That would qualify them to move into that one percent. Veteran players make much more, with the average salary coming in at just over five million dollars a year. The figures for owners are a little more complex, but I think it's fair to expect that none of them are joining the protestors out on the streets.
But what about the families of the concession workers and custodians of the arenas where those games won't be played? The drivers of charter busses, taking teams and fans to and from venues? Professional gamblers can probably make out all right by switching to the over/under bet on when the season might resume, but the rest of us? The business of professional sports continues, with the most ironic place on the map being Detroit, where the sports continue to be played while the city itself falls into ruin. Meanwhile, that gulf continues to grow.