Day 304: Anger and Gratitude

by Claire. Claire@TrippingOnWords.com

I am very happy and very angry today. Here are some articles on the situation with Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada and the BALCO fiesta. How my dad found out he may not have to go to prison is here. For a more thorough explanation, try this one. For a piece I like, try this one. And for the latest update, try here.

They are apparently not commenting for now, so I am not sure what I should say, except that the recent developments are fantastic and everyone can be guardedly optimistic that my father will not have to go jail this time around.

But the situation is far from over. The issue - should reporters have to tell the government where they get the sources that lead to free speech in America - remains. America needs a Federal Shield Law for reporters, so that people like my dad and Mark are not just sitting ducks waiting for the government to subpoena them yet again for another ever so slightly different version of the endless Steroids in Sports drama.

Because anytime the government decides they want to subpoena a journalist, they can, and then we run up against that same annoying glitch: that the whole point of investigative journalism is not to talk about your sources. And we all know the uber effective solution: jail the journalist!

Ah, what a system.

Finally, though, the wonderful news is that Barry Bonds finally signed his new contract tonight with the Giants. It is worth $15.8 million with the potential incentives of $4 million more for one year of undoubtedly very clean sportsmanship. I am thrilled our fine government has chosen to not send anyone like him to jail, what with the illegal drugs and the lying about it and all. Pish Posh! It is simply far more fun to mess with the lives of the journalists who wrote about the nut job.

And I love hearing Bonds' lawyer Michael Rains mouth off on television about how my father and Mark, the journalists, did all this for the money. Of course this makes perfect sense if you remember that journalism, and not being a pro baseball player, or being the celebrity lawyer of a pro baseball player, is clearly where the money is. My father, who loves what he does and is grateful for the salary he earns, says it best when he says that he earns in a year what Barry does in 5 innings. At least that was with last year's contract, so this year I'm sure my father's worth far less.

2 comments:

Doug said...

I read about your father in the paper today and it brought a smile to my face to see that he will likely avoid jail. The internet is a funny thing in that it somehow pointed lots of people to this blog, and these people (namely myself) started having deeply invested sentiments in a court case that we may have otherwise missed...Glad to see things are finally swinging your father's way

sarah mac said...

I hope Michael Rains reads your blog. And I'm really happy for your dad.

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