Commenter Archive

That's certainly an argument, but that's about why Harris wouldn't engage in empty and anodyne blather, not about whether it would have been efficacious. And if it wouldn't have been efficacious, why do it?

A charming belief in the efficacy of empty and anodyne blather. Cicero had something to say about this.

I don't accept the premise that things are getting crappier. I accept that they may be going in directions I don't like, or that you don't like, or that other people don't like, and if you're in a business that requires catering to people's actual likes you are entitled to react to what you find that sufficient numbers of people don't like. "Crappier" doesn't enter into it. Experiments sometimes fail. The market speaks. You move on. That's why it's not a "problem." Or, if it is, it's a self-correcting one.
That sometimes has the unfortunate effect of depriving me of something that I want, sometimes not merely because other people prefer mushrooms, which is just my bad luck for having minority tastes, but because they don't want me to get olives even when they get their mushrooms. I think that's a problem, but a very different one.

What is X, why is it a "problem," other than that you don't like it, and why is there any need for a solution beyond network executives reacting to ratings, which we all seem to agree is OK?

I asked, you answered, and I responded to your answer. That's how it works. If you have something to say that addresses my response, you're welcome to say it. That's how that works works.

How many times do I have to say that I have no issue with what ESPN did or why they did it before you catch on? That's not "the problem."

There is no general principle of no politics in sports, and no one who claims that there is -- very much including people who don't watch much sports or consume much sports journalism -- can say that with a straight face given the actual political content of SportsWorld. They don't object to politics in sports until someone sprinkles in politics they don't like. They don't want no politics and they don't want balanced politics. They want their politics, and they get bent out of shape if anything is offered to people with different tastes. It's not enough that they get mushrooms; they whine when someone can get olives.
That said, I haven't said a word against the business decision to cater to the whiners. If they had asked me, I'd have told them that the whiners would whine, and the olive lovers, being used to not getting olives, would suck it up if they took the olives away. Unlike the whiners.

So?

She couldn't have.

So?

If the numbers are large enough, you have to cater to the anti-olive pizza eaters. You don't have to cater to pro-olive people who don't eat pizza, no matter how numerous.

There are people who get upset if someone offers olives to people who want olives. If there are enough of them, then catering to them means no more olives. Even if they're being childish.

It strikes me as being in a different place than “true”.

Why am I not surprised?

Do you get upset that the local pizzeria offers olives? Or pepperoni? Isn't it enough that they let you have mushrooms? It should be. If not, you are a freakin' child. The pizzeria owner has good business reasons not to tell you that. The rest of us don't.

My IRA was going gangbusters well before the election, and so was your 401(k).

I missed the part where you say it wasn't true. Impolitic, maybe, for people in the business to admit, but I'm not in the business, I don't want their eyeballs, and I don't have to "cater" to them. And I've never disagreed with the actions of those who are and do. I've simply described them.
So, again, with whom, exactly, are you disagreeing?

With whom, exactly, do you think you're disagreeing?

If you pick both sides' arguments for them. you can't lose.

Why? The professionals have made their decision-- and it is their decision --- and are content with the results. And I'm OK with that. Whoever you think you're arguing with, it isn't me.

You misunderstand. SportsWorld is suffused with bullshit right-wing politics pretending it isn't politics. I have no interest in trying to change that, let alone introducing bullshit politics more to my taste. I'm enough of an adult to understand that not every minute of an hours-long sportscast will or should appeal to me and I don't whine when something doesn't. SportsWorld, however, is the toy store and screaming kids are a fact of life.

Thanks

I tried again because I saw this comment come up. Didn't work.

There's an old adage: if you want to get the maximum amount of rubble into a dump truck, load the boulders first, then the big rocks, then the small rocks, then the pebbles, then the gravel, then the sand. Some people, though, just seem to like shoveling sand.

And this is a particularly bad example, even from the perspective of sand-shovelers. The Harris campaign reached out to a demographic they wanted to reach, sports fans, that were not inclined to vote for her. Maybe it wasn't Joe Rogan, but it was a fine piece of sand shoveling.

But it didn't work, and predictably so. When people whine about not wanting politics in their sports, what they really object to is someone else's politics in their sports: Colin Kaepernick keeling is politics; denouncing Coin Kaepernick for kneeling isn't, dammit. And as any significant consumer of sports and sports media can tell you, the prevailing tilt of sports politics is rightward. Just last week, for example, when I made my 15-minute drive to the train station with sports talk radio on, I spent an entire ride hearing nothing about sports and tuning out the drive-time host's rant about Daniel the subway choker Penny. And I'd bet he thinks he hates politics in sports.

For some reason, my comment isn't going through. I sent it twice, thinking I screwed up the first time. I like the second better.

Maybe we need a comic sans typeface here. Or you do, anyway.

There doesn't have to be a reason for San Francisco to be on the bingo card. But it is.