We all face competition as we strive for success in our careers, but few face anything close to the challenge of succeeding in professional athletics. According to the NCAA, about 1 percent of high school baseball players will play professionally. Facing such long odds, it's not hard to understand why so many young men turn to performance-enhancing drugs.

Different sources say different things about the effectiveness and danger of steroid use, but recently the most prominent examples send a clear message: steroids work. In the past few months, leaked grand jury testimony and personal admissions revealed that Jason Giambi (whose current contract is worth $120 million), Gary Sheffield (who finished second in MVP voting) and Barry Bonds (the likely all-time home run king) have used illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Of course, not every player that uses the drugs is successful, and not every successful player uses drugs, but those who do gain an advantage over those who don't. [Read article]

By denouncing a street culture that emphasizes bling over books, comedian Bill Cosby has drawn criticism from those who dismiss him as just another celebrity airing his social conscience. Unfortunately, what they fail to recognize is that he's right.

Railing against promiscuous parents and their "knucklehead" children, Cosby's comments have struck a chord with parts of the black community and a raw nerve with others. By demanding change, the newly stern comedian has drawn the spotlight to the proverbial elephant in the room: After three decades of affirmative action, why do significant portions of black America still languish in crime-ridden poverty? [Read article]

Columnist's Social Security arguments flawed

On Jan. 14, columnist Matt Gray took on Bush's Social Security reform proposal. There, he expressed his dissatisfaction with the administration's plans to partially privatize Social Security on the grounds that:

1. It costs too much in the short term, and

2. Better options exist since the inherent risk of investing in the stock market is something that could lose people a lot of money, thus putting future government budgets at risk of having to take care of them, should things go bad. Instead, he offers a compromise - namely, direct government investment into the stock market, as opposed to the creation of private investment accounts. [Read article]