Slate's Bizbox
the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Christopher Caldwell and Jonathan Mahler

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Christopher Caldwell

Getting the Treatment

Posted Thursday, March 2, 2000, at 10:44 AM ET

Dear Jonathan,

From this morning's Financial Times: "Triple Win Gives Bush Fresh Fillip." No "still" in that headline.

Your Forward rule on eschewing "still" for news stories is a sound one. There are other words that should never, ever be used in journalism. One is the adjective "famous," as in "It was the famous English poet Ernest Dowson who taught Yeats about meter" or "New York was abuzz with the arrival of the famous Italian actress Eleonora Duse." The problem is that if the reader has heard of the person it describes, "famous" is redundant--saying, in effect, Here's a well-known person who is well known. If the reader hasn't heard of the person it describes, "famous" is condescending to the point of rudeness--saying, in effect, Here's a person who, while unknown to you, is a household word among your educated betters.

When we were talking about stadium taunts earlier this week, I almost mentioned that I was at Fenway for the 1986 World Series game at which Darryl Strawberry was first berated with the whiny "Dahhhr-ryl, Dahhhr-ryl" that has followed him for the rest of his career. He hit two homers in that game and practically walked around the bases. I've always thought him a creep.

And yet, reading this morning that Strawberry is heading off to Cocaine Acres for an indefinite "rest," I felt pity for him. Does anyone seriously think Strawberry is a cocaine "addict"? My guess would be that he's got a cocaine-testing problem. Strawberry passes enough of these tests a) to make it clear he doesn't have any uncontrollable need for cocaine that could properly be described as an "addiction," and b) to allow us to quantify his use of it, which ranks somewhere below that of the average college student circa 1980 or the average fashion executive today. What's more, anyone who knows the rigors of a baseball season knows that for large stretches of Strawberry's life, cocaine is a non-issue.

Now major league baseball decides "for Darryl's own good" to take him away from a way of life in which cocaine necessarily plays a minor role and to "suggest" that he be locked away in a place where cocaine is a way of life. You can call this "counseling," but what it amounts to is propagandizing him about cocaine, cocaine, cocaine all day long, then asking him, after six months of treatment--the treatment would be more like it--if he's finally "ready" to "admit" he's obsessed with cocaine.

In other words, the Strawberry regimen turns a guy with a problem into a guy with an addiction. An addict is someone who's been identified as an addict and colludes in that identification. Once Strawberry gets out of the bin and is reintroduced to life as a multi-dimensional thing, he'll realize he has collaborated in his own dehumanization. He'll feel conned--it'll seem like druglessness that is the one-dimensional, life-shrinking option. He may not be able to put it into words. But at that point, having been taught that cocaine is the cynosure of his universe, he will naturally see only one honest way to reclaim his manhood, salvage his dignity, and reaffirm his freedom: by "beating" the cat-and-mouse testing regimen major league baseball has set up for him.

Not that baseball is the worst offender in such matters. But this story has undertones of a life being wrecked unnecessarily.

Best,
Chris

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Christopher Caldwell

Getting the Treatment

Posted Thursday, March 2, 2000, at 10:44 AM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Christopher Caldwell is senior writer at the Weekly Standard and a columnist for New York Press. Jonathan Mahler is a senior editor at Talk.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Highlights from The Fray:

[The Breakfast Table participants covered a wide variety of serious and political subjects this week, and as usual Fraygrants knew which were the really important topics, and were keen to participate in the life of the mind:]

The reason the quoted verse of the Steely Dan lyrics makes no sense is that you have omitted the central line:


Any major dude with half a heart
Surely will tell you, my friend
Any minor world that breaks apart
Falls together again.
When the demon is at your door,
In the morning he won't be there no more.
Any major dude can tell you

Doesn't that make it crystal clear?

--Ralph Bartlett

(To reply, click here.)


I rather think that Jonathan missed Chris' main point. Baseball teams shouldn't be adopted for their success, or for their failures. There's something mightily strange about growing up in California and rooting for the Yankees. After all, there was hardly any shortage of New York teams on the West Coast - whence the need to appropriate the only one that remained where it belonged? I'm a Red Sox fan because I was born and raised fifteen minutes from Fenway Park, because one of my strongest childhood memories is the glory of '86 (and yes, the pain), and because hope springs eternal at the end of winter. I do, however, want to compliment Chris. He may not be a native New Yorker, but he seems as smugly superior as any Yankees fan whom I have ever met.

--Yoni

(To reply, click here.)


Maybe it's one of those "you had to have been there" sort of things, but I thought The Sure Thing was charming. It was funny without being crude or stupid. And the punchline you were strugling with? After a series of catastrophes, the protagonists find themselves locked out of shelter in a downpour. The girl suddenly recalls that she has a credit card, but "I'm only supposed to use it for emergencies!"

--Bill Altreuter

(To reply, click here.)


To Bill Altreuter:
Actually that was the set-up line. The punch line followed: "Maybe one will come up."

--B.Roman

(To reply, click here.)


You should start and post a list of phrases to be banned from the press henceforth. My three nominees (for now): 1) sloe-eyed; 2) tsunami; 3) "I knew (blank) and you're no (blank)."

--Matt Murray

(To reply, click here.)


Here are some more proposed Taboo Phrases: 1) Its the *******, stupid! 2) Risky tax schemes 3) Move forward 4) Media savvy 5) Sole remaining Superpower 6) Outside the mainstream 7) Go negative.

--John McGraw

(To reply, click here.)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
The Great Debate
Marcus | Forget Biden. I'd like to see McCain face off against Palin.
Toles: Another McCain SurpriseStumped: Where's Palin's Baby?