I wasn’t involved, I swear

After three, 20 minute basketball games I’m sore. Not only that, but we finished in fifth place. Never mind there were six teams.

… A story broke recently on ESPN accusing a runner for a sports agent company giving former USC basketball player O.J. Mayo an extraordinary amount of gifts. Clothes, dinners and a flat screen television are just a few of the examples this runner allegedly gave Mayo.

Now, why would I mention this story? Coincidence. Well for starters, the insider that broke this story used to work at the Press-Telegram as a prep reporter/editor.

Big deal? Perhaps.

Well this runner has also been driving around a Lexus that was purchased from Toyota dealership owned by two former San Francisco 49ers, one of who went to USC. And where is this Toyota dealership? Tracy, California.

So again, if you hear a story about a person who used to work at the P-T involved with O.J. Mayo and a guy driving a Lexus he purchased in Tracy, that person isn’t me.

… Getting back to where I work, the computers were finally fixed a week ago. I know you’ve been on the edge or your seats for that news.

Since I’ve moved over to Torrance and worked there for a week into it, I thought that by May I would have a better idea of what I wanted to do and where I’d want to be. I gave it to May since there is three pay checks in this month and the Daily Breeze was supposed to move to a new building and around this time.

Well they still haven’t figured out where they are moving.

Have I decided about moving on? Well, I’m not planning on having my retirement party here with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. I like the people I work with and what I do, I just have to look out for myself. Layoffs are always on my mind. My brother-in-law that worked in TV news told me once: “The only person you have to stay loyal to is yourself.”

The problem is that I’m starting to make more than someone who is just starting out in another field at an entry level position. So if I move out of newspapers, I’m probably going to lose money. However, I’d hope, I’d be in a more stable place.

But another friend of mine, who like me was run out of the Press-Enterprise only to find a better paying job, told me since I work at a newspaper, I may not realize how much I’m getting underpaid. So we’ll see.

… As you can tell, I have little confidence in the LANG, but it’s only the start. I also have little confidence in the job market as well, which will probably make me stay longer than I’d want.

I’m sure I’m not alone in having little confidence in anything. There is inflation everywhere. The dollar isn’t worth as much as it used to be around the world. Our president got us involved in a war that, by his miscalculations, is still going on. And of course, there is an energy crisis with gas prices soaring. Maybe some of us feel that it’s only going to get worse.

All this sounds familiar, in a way, to me. Watching the History channel as much as I do, I know I’ve seen this all before.

So I’m reminded of Jimmy Carter’s “Crisis in Confidence” speech delivered almost 29 years ago. For 10 days prior to the speech, he listened to a cross section of the people and wrote down what they said. Then he got in front of the nation and for more than 30 minutes delivered a speech discussing the problem of United States is not what you can see, but beneath it all.

"In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives, which have no confidence or purpose."

By the end of the speech, Carter implores everyone to come together.

"Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources – America's people, America's values, and America's confidence."

History looks at the speech as a president blaming the people for the problems in the U.S. In hindsight, this speech may not have been the best to give by a president. However, if given by anyone else it would be very powerful.

I recommend reading it only if you have a half-hour because, even though it was written when I was 1, it still rings true today.