{"id":1203,"date":"2017-05-30T18:44:10","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T23:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisa.rushworth.us\/?p=1203"},"modified":"2017-06-02T08:15:53","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T13:15:53","slug":"reality-tv-presidency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/?p=1203","title":{"rendered":"Reality TV Presidency"},"content":{"rendered":"

LeBron James left the Cleveland Caveliers in 2010. Players change teams\u00a0all<\/em> the time. Even star players change teams occasionally – salary caps, better chance at a championship, whatever. Sucks, but it happens. Making the announcement on a live ESPN broadcast – no matter how much money he managed to generate for a charity –\u00a0was a terrible way to handle the announcement. From a reality-TV perspective, sure it’s great. Guaranteed viewers, suspense, drama, heartbreak. But as a\u00a0person<\/em> it lacks tact, lacks compassion … and as a highly paid athlete who is revered by many, it’s an offensive way to treat fans who bought your merchandise and watched you play.\u00a0The guy was a kid at the time, and his move back to Cleveland seemed to be handled in a more mature fashion.<\/p>\n

I cannot help but think of being in Cleveland during the James announcement (complete with LebronFire events burning jerseys) when the White House\u00a0declares Trump will be announcing his decision on the Paris Climate Agreement on Thursday. Oh, the drama. The suspense. The heartbreak – because, really, does anyone think he’s going to remain\u00a0in<\/em> the agreement? Even if he allows the country to remain in the agreement (an agreement, remember, that was\u00a0limited greatly by a desire to achieve something that\u00a0might<\/em> be acceptable to US Republicans) … does he have any intention of enforcing the agreement? Honestly, the\u00a0world is better off with America out – re-write the agreement with stricter goals.\u00a0US companies will need to continue\u00a0increasing\u00a0energy efficiency and decreasing emissions or they’ll be unable to sell products outside of the country. Hell, US\u00a0cities<\/em> will create their own clean air and water regulations. One impetus behind the clean air act was the cloud of toxic chemicals around Pittsburgh that literally killed people. Practically needed a respirator to walk around LA. London – not a US city, but I remember getting back from a day walking around London to spend an hour blowing black snot out of my nose (and how much of that crud remained in my lungs??). I cannot imagine NYC was any better.\u00a0And if customers refuse to buy the products — what use is your coal plant if no one will purchase your electricity? Some foreign company’s super-efficient SUV is more attractive even if it costs more up front — pay 100$ a week to fill the tank v\/s 100$ a month and you’re looking at a fuel savings of 18k over five years.<\/p>\n

Trump campaigned on\u00a0abandoning the treaty.\u00a0Look at who he appointed to lead the EPA. Seriously,\u00a0the only suspense was\u00a0if<\/em> we’d officially withdraw or if we’d just\u00a0neglect enforcement. By indicating that there’s an announcement … I already know we’re withdrawing. But why try to recreate LeBron’s\u00a0The Decision<\/em> spectacular?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LeBron James left the Cleveland Caveliers in 2010. Players change teams\u00a0all the time. Even star players change teams occasionally – salary caps, better chance at a championship, whatever. Sucks, but it happens. Making the announcement on a live ESPN broadcast – no matter how much money he managed to generate for a charity –\u00a0was a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[218,211,219],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us-government","tag-climate-change","tag-maga","tag-paris-climate-agreement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1208,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions\/1208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rushworth.us\/lisa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}