Archive for April, 2008
ESPN racist, shuns Obama?
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008Get used to the sensationally splashy blog headlines, people. I’m trying to build up traffic.
So, the media is biased. Blah, blah, blah. Rarely is this proven as fact. Unless a documentary is made about you or you’re overly-anxious to report a story based on false documents, most attacks are basically speculative and not worth more than that.
Well, ESPN has apparently joined these ranks as it has been reported in the New York Daily News that the World Wide Leader abruptly canceled two scheduled programming appearances of Barack Obama. The first was to be a popular pod cast with ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons. The second was to be an interview with Stuart Scott, a popular ESPN personality. Both were apparently canceled by “higher-ups” according to the article, which cited a campaign aide as its source:
“It’s of interest that ESPN president George Bodenheimer has supported Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid with a donation of $1,000. “
So there you go. This looks bad on ESPN’s part, of course (although it’s worth noting that Disney, which owns ESPN, hearts Clinton). They’ve got a virtual monopoly on the sports media industry, but has drawn enormous criticism from the blogosphere — among many, many other places — for its gradual embrace of the ‘E’ part of ‘ESPN’ — that is, Entertainment.
Anyone who follows sports can’t help stumbling on one of ESPN’s many networks and have likely found its most popular platforms — SportsCenter, Mike and Mike, etc. — flooded with cross-promotions and goofy material that has nothing to do with actual sports. And it’s awful.
But none of this compares to promoting and controlling content based on a political agenda, which is what ESPN is being accused of doing. I’d be disappointed, but not overly outraged. As I said above, ESPN owns the market share and have the power and influence to both secure and drop the most sought after interview in the country as they please.
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Breaking News: Child molestation shameful
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008Headline on front page of New York Times this morning:
“Pope, in U.S., Is ‘Ashamed’ of Pedophile Priest”
Sweet. Glad that’s been established. Pedophilia = shameful. Duly noted.
So last night at 11, I tuned into the local news and was switching back and forth between the networks to see how the Papal visit was being covered and, as promised, ‘blanket’ was a more fitting word to describe it. Each station led off with the Pope’s arrival in DC to meet President Bush, and the stories got worse from there. There was some nonsense about increased security for his visit, which isn’t actual specific to a Papal visit….
“These city security measures not just specific to the papal visit, but are protocol for major events, like the UN General Assembly and visits by the president.”
…which reminded me why I even bothered to tune in.
There’s also a Catholic teacher strike that is trying to piggy back on this media event. They seem to be getting what they wanted.
And then finally, there was the breaking news account of Pope Benedict’s comments about the child abuse scandals that has destroyed the Catholic Church’s image in the U.S., which came before he even landed in D.C. The attention given to his comments brought to light a disturbing realization. The fact this was news at all is yet another reminder of how slow the Church was in reacting to revelations of the scandal. If we’re just now hearing that the Pope is “ashamed”, after all these years, what took so long?
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Poor is the new [insert minority here]
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008Being poor isn’t something people strive to be. 100 out of 100 poor people I just surveyed on the street in SoHo confirmed this.
In all seriousness, not having a job and being poor shouldn’t be a source of pride. It’s a condition blind to race, ethnicity and religion. For that reason there’s really no common tie that binds the millions of people in our country who are at the wrong end of our tragic disparity-of-wealth gap. Rather, it should be a source of inspiration for improving the plight of the lower class.
Yet for whatever reason, Barack Obama’s comments about “small town folk” and their love of guns, God and racism has sparked an unusual debate started by Obama’s opponents that is attempting to unify poor people. This is not a “workers unite!” or a proletariat vs. bourgeoisie kind of rally though. It’s an attempt to hammer Obama for a single poorly-worded sentence that was speaking on a greater theme.
I’m not outraged about the spin. I’m used to it. It’s happened with Clinton on numerous occasions throughout the campaign — too numerous to count (in fact, it’s almost nice to see that Obama is finally getting some unfair coverage to balance things out). What I’m more concerned about is that Obama’s bottom line message, which is an important one, will get lost.
Being poor sucks. Not only do you not have a lot of money, but you’ll always be poor because your education sucks. Oh, and you’ll die sooner too, because your healthcare is pathetic, if it exists at all.
Personally, and unapologetically, I believe that many of the small-town folk highlighted in Obama’s speech do in fact boast “values” like anti-gun control, pro-life and anti-immigration because of their economic status. I think that when you’re raised in a certain culture — be it of poverty, prosperity, ignorance, community, or hate — you’re likely to reflect those values as an individual.
I don’t think that’s what Obama was trying to say in his speech. That’s what I’m saying. Believe me, it’s not the first sweeping generalization I’ve made.
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The Roman Catholic Church and Me
Monday, April 14th, 2008The Pope comes stateside this week, and the hype is deafening. In New York City alone, it seems like every news media outlet has set aside a substantial portion of their reporting team to covering Benedict’s arrival. Each of the major television news stations — NY1, Fox, WNBC, WABC, WCBS — have sections on their web sites dedicated to coverage of his visit. Of these WABC, WNBC and NY1 are the only ones that appear to have substance behind their fancy page designs. NY1 has even promised “24-hour coverage” of the Pope’s visit. Get excited.
Even as a Roman Catholic, baptized and confirmed in the Church, I’m struck at the amount of attention that is being paid to what will likely be nothing more than a symbolic visit. The Pope’s focus on his various stops and meetings will be on promoting world peace to youth. Sounds rather vague, no?I’ve heard from people in the parish I grew up in tell stories about the Pope’s spirituality: about how he can bring people to tears just by his mere presence.
I’m from a different generation. I don’t get it and I don’t think that a nation in which 3/4 the population is not Catholic should be expected to “tune in” to every insignificant detail of that religion’s leader.
I think I was probably too young to remember what kind of impact Pope John Paul had when he visited America, so I can’t put Pope Benedict’s visit into perspective. I know that since the last visit 1995, scandals have ravaged the Church’s honor and integrity, while dwindling church-goers have forced dioceses to close down more parishes.
In any event, Pope Benedict’s visit has forced me to reflect on my own Catholic upbringing. I’m not religious today even though Catholicism was as huge part of my childhood. I was an altar boy. I was an active member of our Youth Group. I even did a number of good deeds as part of the Church, helping out the homeless and even spending a week building houses with Habitat for Humanity.
So I can’t explain why none of the Church’s teachings have stuck with me and it’s baffling because a part of me truly would like to have a religious affiliation.
Perhaps I’ll pay extra close attention to the Papal visit these next couple weeks to see if there’s I anything I missed during the thousands of homilies, gospels and religious education classes I sat through as a kid.
Lord knows, there will be enough news coverage of the event.
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Curse of the Big Papi: Averted
Monday, April 14th, 2008Yankees nation can breath a sigh of relief on this brisk Monday morning. Over the weekend The New York Post’s investigatory team of reporters, ever the pillar of quality journalism — the same one that uncovered a Marilyn Monroe sex tape, mind you — created, broke, and then provided “exclusive coverage” of a story about construction of the new Yankee Stadium. Pretty much, here’s how it goes:
In August, a Red Sox fan places a David Ortiz jersey at the construction site where the new Yankees Stadium is being built and pours concrete on it. Two construction workers, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak to the media (this isn’t a joke), get concerned that their beloved baseball team is hexed and, 8 months later, takes the story, with photos, to the Post. The Post runs with it, breaking the “story” on Friday and follows it up with a 6-page spread in Saturday’s edition. Finally, on Sunday, the efforts of The Post’s version of Woodstein — Jeremy Olshan, Jason Nicholas and Chuck Bennett — leads to action. Real action. $50,000 worth of action. That’s how much it would cost to dig up the jersey, which was encased in over 2 feet of solid concrete. The Yankees brass gets involved, expresses outrage and threatens to sue the worker for trying to curse the Yankees.
None of this would bother me — I expect this kind of garbage juice to be wrung from a rag like The Post — if it weren’t for the fact that in today’s Sports Monday section of the New York Times the story was picked up and covered. I nearly spit up my coffee on the ‘F’ train on my way to work when I read this.
Obviously, some blame is due to the Yankees organization. They seemed every bit as eager to jump in front of the cameras for this spectacle as the Post did to create it:
After the discovery, the team ordered the work stopped - and left the shirt in the cement in preparation for an extraction ceremony today.
“We want to thank The Post for raising the issue,” McGillion said [team spokesman]. “The [two] workers were terrific in coming forward. They wanted the shirt out of there.”
It’s one thing for a tabloid to create a story when the news day is slow. But it’s quite another to see more reputable papers jump on the bandwagon and run with it. It’s just another example of the news media cycle’s power and influence. A story becomes a story only when it is covered and reported on. Before that, it’s nothing more than a day in the life of an everyman.
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When does society deem you a failure?
Friday, April 11th, 2008Repeat offenses (5 arrests, to be exact) seems like a pretty good start. Chris Henry, who served an 8-game suspension (that’s half a season) under the NFL Commish’s new behavior policy, was arrested last week for punching a driver and smashing his car’s window.
Henry managed to stay out of trouble for the last year, after 4 arrests in the span of 7 months which led to his suspension. After this arrest, however, Henry was immediately released by his former team, the Cincinnati Bengals. The Commissioner’s office has not yet issued a statement, but when Roger Goodell suspended him last year, he told the player is was his “last chance.”
We’ll see. He’s already lobbying other teams for a spot on their roster…or at least trying. He’s going the Pacman Jones route, trying to secure a guest appearance on former Cowboy receiver Michael Irvin’s radio show, according to the Star-Telegram:
“He has contacted former Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin about potentially appearing on his radio show on ESPN 103.3 FM. Jones made a nearly three-hour appearance on the Irvin show two weeks ago to talk about his troubled past and Henry could be trying to use the same platform to explain his past behaviors.
In that interview two weeks ago, Jones asked for a “second chance”. “In the end, I just pray to God I get a second chance,” he said. About Dallas and their owner Jerry Jones possibly picking up his two-ton baggage, Jones said: “It’s obvious Jerry does give people a second chance. He has a great heart. Hopefully, I can get one of those second chances.”
I’ll take even odds that says Pacman doesn’t make it another year without being involved with some legal trouble.
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A traditional unlike any other
Thursday, April 10th, 2008Golfers are bearly making the turn in the first day of the first round of perhaps my favorite golf tournament to watch on television — The Masters. Growing up and with no interest in golf I remember being inundated with commercials for the tournament’s “tradition” while viewing the NCAA Tournament, which was far more exciting and relevant to a young, athletic lad. But something about Jim Nantz’s soothing twang (”Hi friends”) appealed to me so one year I decided to sit down and watch.
That year was 1997 and it was the year Tiger Woods, at age 21, won by an astonishing 12 strokes and broke a 32-year scoring record. It became one of about a dozen or so sporting events that I’ll always remember. Sure, there were racial ramifications that resounded with me, but those wore off when it turned out Tiger wasn’t black after all.
More to the point, here was young, confident guy with ice in his vein and he didn’t look like anyone else on the tour. In fact, he looked like he could actually play a different sport and do it competently. Golf became cool after Tiger.
So Master’s not only marks an event that transcended sports for young kids, it marks for me the start to Spring and the anticipation that my first 18 holes are not far off. I’m literally giddy for it. For this weekend at least, I’ll leave it to the pros and see if Tiger can’t begin making history.
After this weekend, it’s fair game and I’ll leave you with a video that I had a good laugh over:
The proper way to throw your club
It usually takes place the week after
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