While it's no surprise that I would reach for a reuben sandwich, the more devout members of the Gazette football pool were both surprised and entertained that I reached for Cleveland Browns tailback Reuben Droughns with my second-round pick in the draft.
I'll start by conceding that yes, it was a tremendous reach. Droughns would have been available in the fifth round and maybe the sixth round, so bearing that in mind I cannot argue it was a foolish pick to make by the traditional logic of fantasy sports. However, there were three reasons why I was compelled to nab Droughns ASAP.
Firstly, I am one of those shallow, rookie-esque, egotistical fantasy participants - in that I like to choose young up-and-comers I feel will bust out in the coming NFL season. In last year's pool, two picks I made that came to mind were Carson Palmer and Redskins TE Chris Cooley, both of which paid dividends. I feel very strongly that Reuben Droughns is a candidate to bust out in 2006.
I not only think that Droughns is going to be vastly improved over last season, I think he will have a strong season by anyone's standards, best-case scenario even warranting the second-round selection. Over the last two seasons, Droughns has ran for over four yards a clip and over 1,200 yards. True, the fact he hasn't reached the end zone often makes him pedestrian in the eyes of fantasy owners. But, Droughns has shown he can be a guy that is durable and runs with both anger and purpose (similar to a consensus top-two pick, Chiefs RB Larry Johnson). The Browns added the best center in the league, poaching LeCharles Bentley from the Saints. His mauling blocks will open holes between-the-tackles and I think his presence will jell the rest of Cleveland's line.
Droughns is a productive, underrated receiver out of the backfield. He can wear a defense down over a game, and Cleveland will have to lean on Droughns as the wrinkles are ironed out with young pivot Charlie Frye. He may face loaded fronts until the Browns prove they can pass, but Droughns produced quality yards in the same situation last year with a lesser O-line. All this considered, I don't think it's crazy that he might go for 1,400 yards and close to double-digit TDs, and you can probably toss 30 receptions in there too. Anything could happen, but I'm higher on Droughns than Keith Richards is on everything.
Finally, in a fantasy draft I'm often compelled to select players I like. Although fantasy football makes the sport more interesting week in, week out, it's tough for me to cheer on arch-rivals just because it'll boost my spot in the standings. I find that element of fantasy sports counter-intuitive, and it's why I probably will never be on the same page as fantasy visionaries such as Matthew Larkin. I don't even always stick to my rule (I took the Steelers' defense, for Christ's sake) but whenever I can I like to take someone I can roundly root for. The Browns are pretty cool, Droughns is cooler, and this was another reason why I nabbed him.
So, although I may have pulled a John Holmes-sized boner with this second-rounder, there was some limited method to my madness, even if it is still inexcusable. In the grand scheme of things, I'll be having fun watching and rooting for my team members and ultimately I think Reuben Droughns will put up some juicy stats.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Friday, July 07, 2006
This isn't OJ....is Concentrated Better?
To clear the air, I'd like to establish that I am a tremendous Tropicana fan, and any orange juice from concentrate is tepid compared to the sweet nectar that is Tropicana Grovestand.
That established, what I'm referring to with the title of this entry is wealth distribution in the world. I don't doubt that any people that fashion themselves as any kind of a (big or small "L") Liberal are ready to jump down my throat right now. While I understand the polarized views on this topic, I recently had a brainwave that made me take a more optimistic stance on the concentration of wealth in the world.
Different experts will tell you that between ten and 20 per cent of the world's population possess 80% of its material wealth. As a bare statistic, this is appalling. Humans all have basic needs and a fundamental level of materials in order to be able to live a fulfilling life. In many areas of the globe, this fundamental level is woefully short. While the investment banker buys a $50,000 vehicle for his/her "winter beater," the surgeon takes yet another trip to Bermuda and the pro athlete "scales down" to an 8,000 square foot home in the Hamptons in the developed world, millions of people are malnourished elsewhere. The nature of capitalism forecasts that wealth progressively gets funnelled into the hands of fewer and fewer, and it does seem to be a gloomy prospect in a world where one hopes human nature is compassionate and sharing.
However, many of the pundits don't understand that a more equitable share of capital would be disastrous for our environment. It is not debatable that our planet is already stretched thin in terms of diminishing natural resources, and it is debatable (but widely argued) that global warming and other pollution-related problems are reaching grave new levels of severity.
If wealth were re-allocated so that all Westerners were placed at or slightly above the "poverty line" in developed nations (roughly $40,000-50,000/year for a family of four), and in turn all the world's dire poor were brought up to or slightly above a developed nation's poverty line - environmental problems would balloon exponentially. There would be millions of more vehicles on the road, there would be a tremendously higher demand for agricultural land (and in turn much more water pollution from pesticides, etc) industrial output would skyrocket and waste would multiply beyond our wildest dreams. Could you imagine if there were even one car per family in nations like China? India? Indonesia? Pakistan? Kenya? Even with Westerners scaling their lives down, demand for environmentally-damaging goods would be unfathomable.
Maybe this is easy for me to say, because I've been lucky enough to grow up in a comfortable community in the developed world, with every opportunity available to me. But most of those out there who criticize the greedy and lament the condition of the world's poor, would themselves also want to be tough on environmental regulation. These are mutually exclusive.
It's true that so many of us privileged (myself included) take things for granted, and put the blinders on when it comes to other's plight. The developed world will eventually have to adjust to a more ecologically friendly lifestyle when economics or crisis forces its hand. But in the end, wealth and poverty are evaluated by capitalists, where the evaluation equates to the level of consumption. That being so, if self-preservation as a species is in our interests, then a more equitable distribution of the world's wealth would never be the answer.
That established, what I'm referring to with the title of this entry is wealth distribution in the world. I don't doubt that any people that fashion themselves as any kind of a (big or small "L") Liberal are ready to jump down my throat right now. While I understand the polarized views on this topic, I recently had a brainwave that made me take a more optimistic stance on the concentration of wealth in the world.
Different experts will tell you that between ten and 20 per cent of the world's population possess 80% of its material wealth. As a bare statistic, this is appalling. Humans all have basic needs and a fundamental level of materials in order to be able to live a fulfilling life. In many areas of the globe, this fundamental level is woefully short. While the investment banker buys a $50,000 vehicle for his/her "winter beater," the surgeon takes yet another trip to Bermuda and the pro athlete "scales down" to an 8,000 square foot home in the Hamptons in the developed world, millions of people are malnourished elsewhere. The nature of capitalism forecasts that wealth progressively gets funnelled into the hands of fewer and fewer, and it does seem to be a gloomy prospect in a world where one hopes human nature is compassionate and sharing.
However, many of the pundits don't understand that a more equitable share of capital would be disastrous for our environment. It is not debatable that our planet is already stretched thin in terms of diminishing natural resources, and it is debatable (but widely argued) that global warming and other pollution-related problems are reaching grave new levels of severity.
If wealth were re-allocated so that all Westerners were placed at or slightly above the "poverty line" in developed nations (roughly $40,000-50,000/year for a family of four), and in turn all the world's dire poor were brought up to or slightly above a developed nation's poverty line - environmental problems would balloon exponentially. There would be millions of more vehicles on the road, there would be a tremendously higher demand for agricultural land (and in turn much more water pollution from pesticides, etc) industrial output would skyrocket and waste would multiply beyond our wildest dreams. Could you imagine if there were even one car per family in nations like China? India? Indonesia? Pakistan? Kenya? Even with Westerners scaling their lives down, demand for environmentally-damaging goods would be unfathomable.
Maybe this is easy for me to say, because I've been lucky enough to grow up in a comfortable community in the developed world, with every opportunity available to me. But most of those out there who criticize the greedy and lament the condition of the world's poor, would themselves also want to be tough on environmental regulation. These are mutually exclusive.
It's true that so many of us privileged (myself included) take things for granted, and put the blinders on when it comes to other's plight. The developed world will eventually have to adjust to a more ecologically friendly lifestyle when economics or crisis forces its hand. But in the end, wealth and poverty are evaluated by capitalists, where the evaluation equates to the level of consumption. That being so, if self-preservation as a species is in our interests, then a more equitable distribution of the world's wealth would never be the answer.
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