Sago Boulevard

In the controversy surrounding Bonds’ steroid use, the best his supporters can do it invoke the legal principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” The problem is that the baseball diamond isn’t a court of law.

According to an espn.com article, “On the subject of Bonds, most Hall of Famers take the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ line in public. ” Robin Yount said, “Until somebody tells me for sure that this guy had some ‘artificial help,’ I won’t hold it against him.” Tom Seaver declared himself to be “one of those people who believes you’re innocent until you’re proven guilty” when asked about Bonds. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig recently announced that he would be there when Bonds hits number 756 “[o]ut of respect for the tradition of this game, the magnitude of the record, and the fact that all citizens in this country are innocent until proven guilty.”

In American law, we presume innocence until guilt is proven and for good reason. Before the government deprives an individual of a his basic freedoms, it ought to afford the accused every reasonable chance to exonerate himself. The law rightly considers a mistaken conviction to be far worse than a mistaken acquittal and this important value is codified in the 5th and 6th Amendments to the United States Constitution.

But we’re talking about baseball. If Bonds were on trial for drug use, the law would offer him the presumption of innocence that all defendants deserve. At issue here, though, is whether the baseball record books or the Hall of Fame should treat Bonds as a cheater. Since nobody is in danger of losing his life or his basic freedoms, I don’t see why the situation calls for the beyond-all-reasonable-doubt standard of criminal court. Simply put, it’s far more likely than not that Bonds used illegal steroids. There is considerable circumstantial evidence that he did, i.e. he first began hitting 45+ home runs at age 35. Bonds also had ample opportunity to vindicate himself by volunteering for drug testing when rumors started circulating. Again, he had a legal right to refrain from testing and if we were in a court of law, his exercising of that right could not be held against him. But we’re on the baseball diamond, not a court of law. And from out here, there’s more than enough evidence to convict Bonds.

I intended to respond to Noah Feldman’s diatribe against his alma mater and Modern Orthodoxy in general. Most of what I wanted to say, though, has been said already and said well. See Chana’s terrific breakdown of Feldman’s rhetorical sleight of hand, Gil Student’s post, Rabbi Carmy’s article in Kol Hamevaser, and Gary Rosenblatt’s editorial in the Jewish Week.

The “About Me” page has been updated.

William Lobdell, a reporter who covered the “religion beat” for the LA Times, writes about how the stories he covered influenced his personal religious journey and how they eventually turned him away from Christianity (via Jill). The article’s well-written and I appreciate his candor in discussing what originally drew him to religion and the kind of theological questions that ultimately led him to reject it. (more…)

The Supreme Court has moved to the right but the sky isn’t falling just yet. Jan Crawford Greenburg nicely distinguishes Kathleen Sullivan’s critique of the Roberts Court from some of the more hysterical, “tabloid-style, Jerry Springer-esque” reactions (via Keith Burgess-Jackson).

I’ve been meaning to purchase Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s recently published prayerbook. So far, I like everything I hear about it (read: what Gil Student writes about it). The conventional translation of the first verse of the Shema begins with “Hear O Israel.” R. Sacks translates it as “Listen, Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” Rabbi Gil has been kind enough to quote from R. Sacks’s explanation of the translation choice.

Shema means not only to “hear” but also “to listen, understand, internalise, respond and obey.” It is translated here as “Listen” because listening is active, while hearing is passive. This, the most famous line of Jewish prayer, is a call to action on the part of the mind, emotion and will. It asks us to reflect on, strive to understand, and to affirm the unity of God. God speaks in a “still, small voice”, and to serve Him is to listen with the totality of our being.

Secular terms for understanding are permeated with visual images. We speak of insight, foresight, vision, observation, perspective; when we understand, we say “I see”. Judaism, with its belief in an invisible, transcendent God, is a culture of the ear, not the eye. The patriarchs and prophets did not see God; they heard Him. To emphasie the non-visual nature of Jewish belief, it is our custom to cover our eyes as we say these words.

R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man, pp. 74-75:

The emotion of fear, the sense of lowliness, the melancholy so typical of homo religious, self-negation, constant self-appraisal, the consciousness of sin, self-lacerating torments, etc, etc constituted the primary features of the movement’s spiritual profile in its early years. . . . The halakhic men of Brisk and Volozhin sensed that this whole mood posed a profound contradiction to the Halakha and would undermine its very foundations. Halakhic man fears nothing. For he swims in the sea of the Talmud, that life-giving sea to all the living. If a person has sinned, then the Halakhah of repentance will come to his aid. One must not waste time on spiritual self-appraisal, on probing introspections, and on the picking away at the “sense” of sin. Such a psychic analysis brings man neither to fear nor to love of God nor, most fundamental of all, to the knowledge and cognition of the Torah.

The subtitle to this Salon article about Hilary and Obama reads “In the Democratic presidential pack, the leading man is a woman and the leading woman is a man” (via Keith Burgess-Jackson). The article contrasts Obama’s appeal to female voters and Clinton’s perceived masculinity.

Clara Oleson, an Iowa Democrat and former labor lawyer, explained all these distinctions on a riverbank in Iowa City last week, while waiting to hear Clinton speak to a crowd of about 1,000. “Obama is the female candidate. Obama is the woman,” she said, after admitting that she was one of his supporters. “He is the warm candidate, self-deprecating, soft, tender, sad eyes, great smile.”

So what does that make Hillary Clinton? “She is the male candidate — in your face, authoritative, know-it-all.”

Articles like this make me doubt the merits of democracy. I can’t believe actually choosing a candidate based on who has “sad eyes.” What a pathetic reflection on our culture.

An interview between a potential juror and the judge illustrates the famous Liar’s Paradox. Daniel Ellis was trying to get out of jury duty. So on the questionnare given to potential jurors, he confessed to not liking homosexuals and blacks. In the interview with Judge Nickson, Ellis added that “I’m frequently found to be a liar, too. I can’t really help it.”

But how can we trust the words of a self-proclaimed liar? The judge then asked Ellis, “So, are you lying to me now?” Ellis answered “Well, I don’t know. I might be.” He then confessed to intentionally trying to avoid jury duty and was taken into custody. He may face perjury charges.

Jayson Stark presents ESPN’s annual baseball mid-season awards. After weighing the relative strengths of Alex Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez, he sides with Ordonez as the AL mid-season MVP. His argument reveals an anti-Yankee bias. While conceding that A-Rod has “had a more eye-popping year,” his dismisses A-Rod’s accomplishments because “the Yankees haven’t been a factor in the division or wild-card races for more than about 20 minutes all season.” Yet, Stark’s NL MVP is Matt Holliday. Holliday’s Rockies enter the All-Star break at .500, half a game ahead of the Yankees. If being a major factor in the division or wild-card races were so crucial, Holliday should be disqualified along with A-Rod.

Stark’s bias aside, A-Rod has been far more valuable to his team than any other player in baseball and precisely because the Yankees have been playing so poorly. In April, with Wang injured, Mussina pitching poorly, and Rivera blowing rare save opportunities, A-Rod’s bat kept the Yankees in games they deserved to lose. And, now with Giambi injured, A-Rod’s homers are that much more valuable.

As far as statistics go, A-Rod and Ordonez are fairly comparable. Ordonez’s OBP is better, A-Rod’s SLG is better. Combined, A-Rod comes out on top by a hair. But there’s one statistic that removes all ambiguity. In the 9th inning, A-Rod is hitting .542 with 7 HR and 18 RBI. His OPS in the 9th is a whopping 2.145, which includes two grand slams. So much for A-Rod’s reputation for not hitting well in the clutch.

A drunk driver causes a car accident which leads to a death. In most cases, the applicable crime is involuntary manslaughter but law isn’t my subject today. Pam Stubbart of The Excluded Middle wonders about the seeming lack of mens rea in this kind of case. (via Philosophers’ Carnival #49). Since alcohol impairs one’s ability to reason, a drunk driver may lack the very ability to intend to kill. One obvious response is that the drunk drivers chooses to drink and is thus responsible for his subsequent actions. To this, Stubbart responds that (more…)