Letters to the Editor
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Bogus analogy
Barton wrote:
If the Prozac I take helps me do my job better in that I can be more effective at work when I am not depressed, am I a cheater? Give me a break!
Your comparison is BOGUS. Prozac is not a performance-enhancing drug like what Bonds took. Basically, you are not “enhancing” anything you do at work (e.g. vastly increasing productivity by a factor 2, 3), you are numbing your wage-slave brain to the sundry indignities endured every day in corporate America (or its lackey offshoots), including your conscious recognition of how they expropriate your labor – and exploit you. Thus, PROZAC enables you to complete the work you’d ordinarily do to a reasonable standard – not do THREE times as much as you did the day before!
By contrast, the second season after Bonds started using steroids his homer production jumped by a factor of TWO. This is beyond the expectation of mere coincidence or any natural ability he already possessed.
I have NO problem with wage slaves keeping their cabinet stocked with Prozac to preserve their sanity in their cubicles (themselves invitations to psychosis) but I do have a problem with a highly paid athlete taking steroids to ramp up his stats, numbers and earn a bogus gravitas he doesn’t merit.
Because thousands of ball players may do it doesn’t make it "right" or acceptable, any more than thousands of people cheating on their taxes makes it right.
Btw, you can peddle that "it's just a sport" malarkey all you want, but the bottom line is that millions of kids look to sports figures as examplars, even more than their teachers. That carries a lot of heft, and thus it is insipid to tell us not to critique or complain sports figures when they cross the line, as Bonds has.
In addition, ALL of this goes beyond the fact he's also a nasty punk. Leaving all his negative persona aside, and how his behavior gets at many fans - he STILL doesn't merit any respect or recongition for breakin' Hammerin' Hank's record.