soapbox

Speaking of Glenn Beck, I point the blog’s attention to Dickipedia – if you’re not already aware of the site, it’s an entertaining, if mean-spirited, bit of time-wasting.

It’s not completely worthless, however, as there’s a good bit of history to be learned. Many of the Dickipedia luminaries are old white men, and as such have had many/several decades to sweep their misdeeds under the rug.

some highlights:
[Ronald Reagan] was nicknamed “The Great Communicator” for his uncanny and unique ability to communicate to the average person the need to kick single, black mothers off welfare.

and

Beginning in 1969, Rupert Murdoch began acquiring, then systemically destroying the journalistic integrity of, several large British newspapers, including “News of the World,” “The Sun,” “The Times,” and “The Sunday Times.” Along the way, he also managed to spark several violent strikes by British print unions, and collude with high government officials to illegally quell said strikes.

It’s not all old white men, the web site also takes on entertainers, sports stars, and even institutions… check out the Olympics entry.

Whitman’s newspaper is the Pioneer and there was an article this week calling for Professor-bloggers to give the URL of their blogs to the Pio so they can be publicized.

I’m thinking that I don’t mention soapbox to them.

Two sports predictions:

First, that in the next 10-20 years, the NFL will be dramatically different from the game/institution that we know today, due to (long-overdue) attention to brain trauma. Concussions will be viewed the way we now view asbestos, where the blithe and dangerous attitude of times gone by will be unfathomable.

Secondly, that Tim Donaghy will eventually be viewed in the same light as Jose Canseco, and that’s meant very complimentarily. Canseco was once a ‘roided-up crackpot who spouted off random and crazy accusations but in the intervening decade or two has been proving correct on pretty much all counts. As for Donaghy, I present you this:

I worked a Knicks game in Madison Square Garden with him on February 26, 2007. New York shot an astounding 39 free throws that night to Miami’s paltry eight. It seemed like Stafford was working for the Knicks, calling fouls on Miami like crazy. Isiah Thomas was coaching the Knicks, and after New York’s four-point victory, a guy from the Knicks came to our locker room looking for Stafford, who was in the shower. He told us that Thomas sent him to retrieve Stafford’s home address; apparently, Stafford had asked the coach before the game for some autographed sneakers and jerseys for his kids. Suddenly, it all made sense.

Okay, no big deal, a ref gave away one game in exchange for some stuff from a Hall-of-Famer, right? Check this out:

In the pregame meeting prior to Game 6, the league office sent down word that certain calls-calls that would have benefitted the Lakers — were being missed by the referees. This was the type of not-so-subtle information that I and other referees were left to interpret. After receiving the dispatch, Bavetta openly talked about the fact that the league wanted a Game 7.

“If we give the benefit of the calls to the team that’s down in the series, nobody’s going to complain. The series will be even at three apiece, and then the better team can win Game 7,” Bavetta stated.

I mean, wow. Not even the Godfather himself (NBA Commish David Stern) will be able to cover this up, even if he sues both Amazon.com and Random House.

P.S. I have spent the last couple hours trying to figure out whether this is an april fools prank or not, given deadspin’s spotty history. But I think this is legit, it just makes too much sense.

So, in last week’s (9/25) podcast, Bill Simmons was discussing the issue of constructing a baseball lineup of “clean players”, i.e. guys for whom you would be truly shocked, surprised, and disappointed if they turned out to have been on the juice/HGH/etc (one assumes from a pool of players from the last ~20 years). He and Jacko name Jeter, and note that SS is well-represented since Ripken would qualify as well.

So, the question is, what lineup can you come up with if you you have to bet your ____ [something you like more than poptarts] on the fact that these guys were clean.

For pitcher, I’d go with Greg Maddux.

Catcher is tough b/c they almost deserve to be allowed to juice given all the pounding they take, and are there any all-stars who really stand out? Simmons threw out Jason Kendall just for fun, but I’m really not sure.

At first base, I’d have to go with Rafael Pamiero, or Mark McGuire, or … sorry, but it’s too easy. : ) Let’s go with the obvious – I would be supremely bummed if Pujols turned out to be juicing – and really there’s no way he can actually take steroids, since he’s a machine.

I’m not going to be able to finish the full list here, but go ahead and try for yourself, it’s a tough list. Which is pretty sad, really.

I just finished my online training in sexual harassment prevention. Despite the fact that I spent a half hour reading through the material, I feel like I know nothing more than I did before. In fact, I may be slightly dumber… Seriously though, how hard is it to recognize the blatantly obvious situations they come up with?

Speaking of that, two of the last five of my blog posts could be construed as sexual harassment.

Here’s a very interesting observation though. No where in the sexual harassment materials does it say that professors here can’t date students. You can’t trade sex for promotions/grades/whatever (and lack of “no” doesn’t imply “yes” given that the faculty are in a position of power) and you can’t walk around making suggestive comments. However, relationships with the consent of both parties are “imprudent” but not forbidden.

At Loyola, it was explicitly stated in the guidelines that relationships with students were firing offenses. Not at good old Whitman though. I should go talk to Prof. redacted.

It makes absolutely no sense that a European vessel would have actually been hijacked by pirates north of the English Channel. That just doesn’t happen.

This article has some pretty interesting theories about what actually did happen. I’m sure we’ll find out. In 50 years.

Was Russia’s ‘Arctic Sea’ Carrying Missiles to Iran? – Yahoo! News.

The new house in Edmonds is close to a road variously called Aurora/99/Evergreen way. It just happens to be the road you’d drive down to get a hooker and a motel that rents by the hour, but I think it’s also really an example of what powers the US.

No, not the hookers. It’s the thousands of small used car lots, vacuum repair shops, small box stores, etc. They don’t seem like a lot until you realize that each one of them represents something like two to five solid jobs and the road stretches for 20 miles.

So, huge economic power. Ugly as hell though.