THE NATION’S FIELD OF DREAMS It seems the Nation won’t let the facts interfere with a Bush-bashing opportunity. The Wall Street Journal noted in its “Best of the Web” column Friday that a Matt Bivens story in the Nation, “The Enron Box,” began with a howler: “When George W. Bush co-owned the Houston Astros and construction began on a new stadium, Kenneth Lay agreed to spend $100 million over thirty years for rights to name the park after Enron.” As the Journal noted, “it was the Texas Rangers, not the Astros, that Bush co-owned.” Strike One. The Nation was quick to “fix” this on their website. By late Friday, they had come up with this solution: “When George W. Bush co-owned the Texas Rangers and construction began on a new stadium, Kenneth Lay agreed to spend $100 million over thirty years for rights to name the park after Enron.” Problem is, the Texas Rangers play at The Ballpark in Arlington. Enron Field is where the Houston Astros play, more than 200 miles away. Strike Two. The Scrapbook is beginning to think the Nation folks need to get out more. They don’t know Texas; they don’t know baseball. The only ERA they’ve heard of is probably the Equal Rights Amendment. So to prevent further embarrassment, we are happy to clue them in: Texas has not one, but two major league baseball teams, the Rangers and the Astros. The Rangers play in the American League; the Astros in the National League. And what does Bush’s onetime ownership of the Rangers have to do with the Astros’ Enron Field? Absolutely nothing. Strike Three. JAMES EARL WHO? When the city of Lauderhill, Fla., was trying to decide last December who they’d get to speak at their annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, they elected not to go with Denzel Washington or Bill Cosby, on account of their being too expensive. Maybe they should have spent the extra cash. After settling on James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader and CNN, Lauderhill suffered a serious public relations setback last week. The plaque they ordered to honor their speaker was unveiled and read: “Thank you James Earl Ray for keeping the dream alive.” The plaque’s manufacturer in Georgetown, Texas, was naturally horrified. Herbert Miller, vice president of sales at Merit Industries, told the Associated Press that not only had his company donated to the NAACP for years, but he himself was Jewish, “which has also been an oppressed minority.” Still, he was mystified about the source of the snafu, since the company is staffed by young Hispanic women with limited knowledge of English. “Many of them don’t even know who Martin Luther King was, much less James Earl Ray,” said Miller. Miller shouldn’t feel too bad. The James Earl juxtaposition is a common source of error. Two years ago, New York newscaster Sue Simmons made the mirror-image mistake, identifying James Earl Jones, the voice of the “Lion King”‘s Mufasa, as King’s assassin. And Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley was once heard loudly grousing that his mayoral opponent was fooling voters by using voiceovers from James Earl Ray in his campaign ads. Former West Virginia governor Cecil Underwood couldn’t remember which James Earl was which, so when he met the actor, he split the difference, calling him “James Earl Ray Jones.” But the worst James Earl jumble may have come when assassin James Earl Ray died in 1998. During a Pittsburgh Pirates game, broadcaster Larry Frattare broke into KDKA’s coverage to announce the death, waxing maudlin about how “a lot of us in baseball have a lot of feelings about “Field of Dreams” and the soliloquy [James Earl Jones] gave.” A few years ago, we thought that the King family itself might have gotten their James Earls confused, when they said that Ray was not guilty of their patriarch’s murder, advancing various conspiracy theories instead. But now that King’s son, Dexter, has been overseeing the marketing of MLK’s voice and image, The Scrapbook has come up with a handy James Earl mnemonic. James Earl Jones is the guy who stars in Verizon commercials. James Earl Ray is the murderer of the man whose voice is used (along with those of Kermit the Frog and Homer Simpson) in Cingular Wireless commercials. Former president James Earl Carter, who has not been spotted in any telephone commercials, could not be reached for comment. BEIJING’S OLYMPIC SPIRIT It’s been rather a while since The Scrapbook last provided an update on China’s Olympic spirit. As close readers will remember, Secretary of State Colin Powell predicted last year that Beijing’s selection to host the 2008 summer games meant China was in for “seven years of supervision by the international community to make sure that the Olympic spirit is kept very much in mind.” So we’ve been keeping a list of Chinese domestic depredations that Foggy Bottom might want to attend to once things settle down in southwest Asia. And, boy, is that list long. To take just two examples. Last year in these pages (“NYPD Red,” Aug. 13, 2001), Ellen Bork reported on her visit to a seminar for Chinese police officials conducted by New York City’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. There men like Zhao Zhifei, deputy police commissioner of Hubei province, received advanced training in things like “crowd control.” While at John Jay, Zhao was also served a $50 million federal civil suit charging him with crimes against humanity in connection with the April 2001 murder of two Hubei Falun Gong practitioners. On July 19 last year, Zhao Zhifei returned to China from New York. And on August 30, a Hubei man named Peng Liang, the plaintiff in the suit against Zhao, was arrested (Zhao was suspected in the torture-murders of Peng’s mother and brother). Peng has not been seen since. For what it’s worth, Peng Liang has won his lawsuit. On December 23, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote entered a default judgment against Zhao Zhifei. Also in the news, concern is growing among international human rights activists that China intends to impose a death penalty against Hong Kong businessman Li Guangqiang, charged last spring with participation in an “evil cult” for having shipped 30,000 copies of the New Testament into Fujian Province. Last week State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said President Bush had taken a personal interest in Li’s case and had requested U.S. diplomats to look into the matter. Good for the president. But we wonder why he had to ask. TATTOO DISCRIMINATION? George Washington fathered a country. Abraham Lincoln saved the Union. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. And Rep. Lois Capps, in a bit of 21st-century statesmanship, has just secured $50,000 in federal funds for tattoo removal, to fight discrimination in her Santa Barbara, Calif., congressional district. “People with visible, inappropriate tattoos,” said Capps, “often encounter negative attitudes, stereotyping and discrimination resulting in unemployment, underemployment or the inability to move forward in their careers.” The Scrapbook applauds Capps for her innovative lawmaking. We’ve often wondered when a courageous politician would ignore the polls, throw caution to the wind, and tackle head-on the crisis of anti-tattoo discrimination. No longer should any American lose a job simply because he has “I Love Mother” etched on his biceps. Never again should proud tattoo-owners have to. . . But wait a minute. Isn’t Capps blaming the victim? Why should the proud tattoo bearer have to lose his body paint simply because some bigoted employer is tattooist? If there’s a federal role here, shouldn’t it be to outlaw anti-tattoo discrimination? Ummm, on second thought, forget we even mentioned it. We wouldn’t want to give members of Congress any crazy ideas.
