Baseball just isn't a terribly cinematic subject, is it?

At bottom, most of the great and not-so-great "baseball" movies are about something else. For instance, FIELD OF DREAMS (not-so-great) is a masculinist fantasy of recaptured childhood and free-floating boy-buddy bonhomie, with Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones practically transforming into Huck and Jim before our eyes. PRIDE OF THE YANKEES is about the triumph of the human spirit over disease, and feels more like an inspirational movie rather than a sports film. (Loving this sort of movie means never having to say you're sorry.) THE NATURAL, for all that it wallows in half-baked mythology, is just another iteration of the old mother-whore complex: It's less concerned with batting fundamentals than with whether all-American Robert Redford will finally hook up with the White Woman (a pre-FATAL ATTRACTION Glenn Close) -- proving that behind every unsuccessful man is a woman who gets all the blame? Even EIGHT MEN OUT is more concerned with the mechanics of scandal than the mechanics of baseball.

One can't say the same for all sports in cinema, of course. A few filmmakers seem to have fared well with the bone-crunching action of American football and British rugby. But baseball seems about as well adapted to cinematic presentation as golf or NASCAR racing.

> I dont agree with you that Joan's exploiting the

> child for political gain. She has, in previous

> posts on this subject, mentioned the conditions

> of her own child's magnet school. I suspect that

> [this] scenario has simply struck a chord with

> Joan.

I doubt Ms. Walsh would be quite so cavalier if a columnist were to single out her children to advance a partisan Republican agenda, regardless of whether her children's situation "struck a chord" with the writer or not. And because I would not wish such a thing to happen to Ms. Walsh, I would not have her do it to anyone else, either. Even with a perfect motive, such an action would be highly presumptuous -- and with anything less than a perfect motive, it would constitute political exploitation. In either case, Ms. Walsh owes a young girl and her parents an apology, for presuming to pontificate on their household affairs. (Perhaps President Obama ought to apologize as well.)

As for what government can do to improve the general lot of children attending failing or underequipped schools (a legitimate political question), the sad answer appears to be: Not much, if government tackles the problem head-on. Even if the Department of Education pumped trillions of stimulus dollars into public schools, relatively few of those dollars would reach students or teachers directly, the resources that did reach the classroom would do so only after years of delay, and the results of such an enormous expenditure -- if any -- would not be visible for at least a decade.

"School choice" doesn't solve these problems, of course -- at least, not right away. But it does change the basic situation of individual parents and children, especially those in low-income or working-class households. Under school choice, government would establish a framework within which parents may make informed decisions regarding the education of their children. School choice would give parents greater power to improve the educational environment of their children -- and to do so not in ten or fifteen years, but in a matter of days or weeks.

The question ultimately boils down to whether we want to help public schools, or whether we want to help the students. If the former, and only the former, then we ought fill public schools' coffers with all the money we have, and never mind about accountability. However, if we're trying to help the students first and foremost, then the best thing we can do is to help their parents. And the first, most essential step in helping parents -- or helping anyone else, for that matter -- is to give them the freedom and power to choose for themselves.

Obviously you didn't read the last paragraph of my first post. Again you have singled out an individual child in order to advance a partisan political agenda. This is reprehensible of you, as it would be of anyone.

Stop exploiting children, Ms. Walsh.

Walsh's argument about South Carolina would be valid, were it not for the state's policy of limited school choice. In South Carolina, students who attend a crumbling public school can transfer to a better-equipped public school within their district. This situation is hardly ideal, but it's good enough to render Walsh's primary criticism moot: Students in a crumbling public school are hardly doomed to remain there eternally.

Of course, Sanford has lobbied for a much broader version of school choice, which if enacted would disproportionately benefit parents of low-income students in failing school districts by giving them multiple options for their children's education. Best of all, this particular educational improvement could be achieved without massive deficit spending, all of which -- as Sanford indisputably notes -- must be paid off eventually.

Regardless of Ms. Walsh's views on school choice, I'm sure she and I would agree that the exploitation of individual children for partisan political gain is deeply reprehensible, regardless of who does it. I hope she will condemn President Obama for using young Miss Bethea in such a manner during his State of the Union address, and that she herself will think twice before engaging in such behavior again. Invoking the general welfare of children is perfectly legitimate, but discussing the welfare of an individual child as if she were somehow one's own seems more than a little cruel to all who are truly, personally involved.

Why is it considered "silly" for a state government to use its financial windfall to pay down debt? That's how a lot of us used our stimulus checks.

Did you lose a bet, draw the short straw, or were your editors just feeling sadistic?

(It's always fun when cinema snobs go slumming.)