Morning News Roundup (09 Mar)

• In a Washington Post-ABC News poll, half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. [WaPo]
  
  
• The State Department is preparing for a ''long struggle" against Iran and has opened a special Office of Iranian Affairs inside the department in Washington and a miniature embassy-in-exile in Dubai to help ''defeat" the Iranian regime. [Boston Globe]
  
  
• Iran threatened America with "harm and pain" if sanctions were imposed as Tehran was finally referred to the UN Security Council for action over its suspected nuclear weapons programme. Asked whether the Islamic Republic would use an "oil weapon", senior Iranian official Javad Vaeedi said: "We will not [do so now], but if the situation changes, we will have to review our oil policies." [Independent]
  
  
• According to a study prepared by the Brookings Institute, implementing a plan to keep rising carbon dioxide levels from reaching potentially dangerous levels could cost less than 1 percent of gross world product as of 2050, a cost that is well within reach of developed and developing nations alike. [TerraDaily] On the downside, the study sees energy crises on the horizon:
  

  "Today's technology base is insufficient to provide clean and plentiful energy for 9 billion people," the authors write. "To satisfy tomorrow's energy needs, it will not be enough simply to apply current best practices. Instead, new technologies, especially carbon capture and sequestration at large industrial plants, will need to be brought to maturity."

• Even as crews work to contain “what is now the sixth largest oil spill ever on Alaska’s North Slope” (see photos), Senate conservatives yesterday released a budget that “tries to resurrect a plan to drill for oil and gas in the Alaskan wildlife refuge.” [ThinkProgress]
  

• Americans smoked fewer cigarettes last year than at any time since 1951, and the nation's per capita consumption of tobacco fell to levels not seen since the early 1930s. [WaPo]
  
  
• Dubai is threatening retaliation against American strategic and commercial interests if Washington blocks its $6.8 billion takeover of operations at several U.S. ports. Retaliation from the emirate could come against lucrative deals with aircraft maker Boeing and by curtailing the docking of hundreds of American ships, including U.S. Navy ships, each year at its port in the United Arab Emirates. [The Hill]
  
  
• Former baseball greats and former teammates--including Cal Ripken, Eddie Murray, Ozzie Smith, Tony Oliva, Kent Hrbek, Bert Blyleven and Dan Gladden--will be on hand for a Sunday night public memorial for Kirby Puckett at the Minneapolis Metrodome. [Star-Trib]
  

[PS] And while it's nicely nostalgic to look back on the good times that Kirby Puckett helped bring to Minnesota, Slate brings up the sticky revelations that came out about Puck after he left baseball, which haven't necessarily made the open paragraphs of the many obituaries celebrating his life:

[I]n 2003, Sports Illustrated published Frank Deford's devastating cover article, "The Rise and Fall of Kirby Puckett," which revealed that—far from being the poster man-child of pure baseball joy—Puckett was an adulterer, a harasser, and an abuser. His wife had made horrible public accusations while divorcing him, one of his girlfriends took out a restraining order against him, and a woman he allegedly groped in a restaurant bathroom filed charges against him (he was acquitted).

Now he's dead at 45, and the obituaries mention but don't lead with his "troubles." In fact, they give the story a nice arc. We like our athletes flawed. They so obviously belong on the field that they can't cope off it. Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden used drugs, Pete Rose gambled, and Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams were mean-spirited jerks. Puckett's former teammate Jeff Reardon, the great closer, was arrested for robbing a jewelry store last December after losing his mind on anti-depressants. These human frailties prove that athletes were meant to play sports, not live in society. The story, then, is that a broken-hearted Puckett ate himself to death trying to fill the gaping hole left by the end of his playing days.

But is it really just a flaw if you strangle your wife with an electrical cord? True, we don't know what really happened between Puckett and his accusers. Moreover, he was cleared of the sexual-assault charges brought against him (though it's clear the jurors didn't believe his story). For the most part, however, I have to admit that I believe he did what they say he did. So, what do you do when you find out your effervescent childhood hero is a violent, potentially evil man? You can repudiate him, forgive him, or try to compartmentalize and love the ballplayer while deploring his actions. I'm trying to do the latter.