I occasionally remind people here in the Philly area that Eagle quarterback Michael Vick has served his time and should be given a chance to redeem himself. He can redeem himself by bagging groceries, of course. He doesn’t have any right to earn millions of dollars in the National Football League. If he violates any of the league’s rules he’ll be gone from football again.
There are millions of anonymous Americans who, like Michael Vick, have served out sentences in prison that were imposed by the courts. And they often find that even a job bagging groceries is out of their reach. That’s why President Obama went out his way to thank the Eagles’ owner Jeffrey Lurie for giving Michael Vick a second chance. It sets an example for other business owners. It also takes balls to get involved with the Vick case because it invites easy criticism. It’s not only the horror most people have for dogfighting, it’s the not unlikely prospect that the president will be left looking like a jackass if Michael Vick screws up again.
But I’m disappointed that people are focusing exclusively on the Michael Vick part of the equation. The president didn’t call Lurie to thank him for hiring Michael Vick alone. He wanted to thank Lurie for doing something much more important.
The Philadelphia Eagles today announced a plan to power Lincoln Financial Field with a combination of onsite wind, solar and dual-fuel generated electricity, making it the world’s first major sports stadium to convert to self-generated renewable energy.
The Eagles have contracted with Orlando FL-based SolarBlue, a renewable energy and energy conservation company, to install approximately 80 20-foot spiral-shaped wind turbines on the top rim of the stadium, affix 2,500 solar panels on the stadium’s façade, build a 7.6 megawatt onsite dual-fuel cogeneration plant and implement sophisticated monitoring and switching technology to operate the system.
Over the next year, SolarBlue will invest in excess of $30 million to build out the system, with a completion goal of September 2011. SolarBlue will maintain and operate the stadium’s power system for the next 20 years at a fixed annual price increase in electricity, saving the Eagles an estimated $60 million in energy costs.
The Eagles and SolarBlue estimate that over the 20-year horizon, the on-site energy sources at Lincoln Financial Field will provide 1.039 billion kilowatt hours of electricity – more than enough to supply the stadium’s power needs – enabling an estimated four megawatts of excess energy off-peak to be sold back to the local electric grid.
The new facility for the New York Giants and Jets is also forward looking in its use of energy and concern for the environment. With any luck, the Eagles’ stadium will become the standard for all new sporting facilities as far as energy use, and the New Meadowlands facility will be emulated for concern about the local ecology, water use, and the use of alternative energy.
The Mara Family and the Luries are leading the way to a new green economy. We should be talking about that, not Michael Vick. Or, maybe I’m just saying that because Vick ruined the Giants’ season?
thank you for posting this, Booman. of course it would be too much to expect the MSM media to have reported the real reason for the President’s contact of the Eagles.
Given that our incarceration rates are higher than our pollution rates (at least by some measures), I don’t think it’s to our advantage to make it an either/or conversation.
In fact, it’s to our advantage to make it a both/and conversation. As President Obama exemplifies in his conversation with Mr. Luria, we progressives are the ones who are not wasteful. We don’t believe in throwing people away because they made one mistake—or even several mistakes. We don’t believe in wastefully throwing garbage into our rivers or carbon into the air.
We’re the ones who go beyond knee-jerk responses to solving problems.
Same thing with Wikileaks. All sorts of important stuff is being revealed in those diplomatic cables, yet our media is devoting itself to coverage of the sex life of Julian Assange. We do not live in a serious country.
It’s easy to distract people. Our intelligence agencies are expert at it, and our media is the medium.
Squirrel!
Sorry, I won’t forget Vick. I think it’s just as important to focus on the employment factor as the environment. And I’m a climate hawk.
Prison reform is very important to me, and I’m tired of people being thrown in cages for stuff that could easily be prevented if they had an education and/or proper chance. Now this doesn’t excuse Vick in and of himself, but that’s not where I’m going. So in this sense it’s still not about Vick, but about racial disparities in prisons; it’s about the rampant rape and sexual abuse in prisons; it’s about our legalized sanction of torture in prisons, with corrupt and abusive officers; it’s about privatization of prisons for profit; it’s about creating more criminals than we’re keeping off the streets; and most importantly, it’s about that rich-poor gap that continues to increase.
Jim Webb may be an apologist for white privilege, but at least he’s at the forefront on an issue that no one cares about which affects people of color far more than whites, an issue where the constituents are represented less proportionately than kids; an issue so hard to tackle because no one wants to be on the side of criminals.
So no, I won’t look more at the environmental impact when this could be used as a lesson about our Prison Industrial Complex. Perhaps Vick isn’t the best poster child, but it’s still an opportunity.
This sounds more right to me:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/morris-w-okelly/mr-president-youre-wrong-_b_801965.html
This isn’t about altruism; it’s about cash. If Vick were foundering, do you believe for one moment that Obama would be talking all this nonsense? If you do, then you’re a crackpot! Why wasn’t this call made immediately after Vick was recruited? Why was it made after such great success? Obama’s routine is quite old and predictable.