Everybody's blogging these days: politicians, cat-lovers, Star Wars fans and everyone in between. Mary Beth Eastman proposes a new reason why.
By Mary Beth Eastman
210 west Writer [send email]
Wednesday 1 February
Spent the weekend struggling to remain disdainfully buoyant after the Daniel fuckwittage debacle. Kept saying the words "Self-respect" and "Huh" over and over until I was dizzy, trying to barrage out, "But I lurrrve him." Smoking was v. bad. ...
From "Bridget Jones's Diary: A Novel," by Helen Fielding
Thursday, April 24, 2003
Yesterday I went to the dentist. They had me fill out a form that said at the beginning something like "Everything here is in the strictest confidence." Then it asks me if I've ever done any drugs in my life because it might counteract with dental procedures. Then it says to sign at the end which will authorize them to give this info to whoever asks for it. Great. So when I become famous, the whole world can know I'm not a stranger to illegal substances. Great. There goes my Girl Next Door image. ...
From girls are weird, a blog by Theresa Christine Peralta.
We all know blogs have exploded in popularity. We can see it when we surf the web, we can sense it -- even though it's hard to calculate how many blogs actually exist [numbers range from 1 million to almost 4 million]. It seems that everybody and her sister has a blog. Why is it so damned popular?
Not, as many propose, because it is a fledgling form of war journalism, though it is. Not, as it's said, because blogs are a quick way to spread news and information, though they are.
The explosion in popularity of blogs and blogging is due to the extraordinary and voyeuristic appeal of delving into someone else's life.
Almost half of all blogs, according to the Blog Census, are personal diaries, and in this category women outnumber men almost two to one.
Blogs are seen by some as a passing phenomenon, a trend on its way out. An explosion which will soon wither and die as people grow tired of them the novelty fades. [See www.fuckedweblog.com for evidence of dead and dying blogs.]
The same was said of Chick Lit during its explosion in the late 1990s.
The popularity of "light", "fluffy," "beach-reads" that center on women and their problems was inexplicable to most. Chick Lit is not high literature. It does not, seemingly, tackle the great problems of Man versus Nature, Man versus Man, Man versus Self. Chick Lit was small, trivial, mindless reading. Chick Lit was about women looking for love and finding community, connection and satisfaction.
Unimportant, reviewers said. Small. A trend.
Yet this genre is showing no signs of fading; it continues to appeal to mass numbers of people, and not just women.
Of course, the term "Chick Lit" can be as derogative and mind-numblingly derisive as "Chick Flicks." It is belittling and narrow and lumps the bad in with the good.
But we can look at it another way. Remove the label and so-called Chick Lit can contain "a myriad of subgenres"- henlit for the over-35s (Jane Green); mum-lit for the child-encumbered (Allison Pearson); lad-lit for single men (Nick Hornby) and dad-lit for fathers (Mike Gayle)."
Take, for example, the popular movie "About A Boy," starring Hugh Grant, based on a book of the same name by lad-lit author Nick Hornby. Sound familiar? Hornby is also the author of book-turned-movie "High Fidelity," a resounding favorite of men and women alike. Hornby's work focuses on a single protagonist, mired in the trivial details of his everyday life and looking for [or not looking for but rather stumbling upon] love, community, connection and satisfaction.
Huh.
And of course, not to be forgotten, the novel that likely launched it all: "Bridget Jones's Diary," by Helen Fielding. A novel written in diary form, exposing Bridget's obsessions, likes, dislikes, love interests and fiber intake.
It in fact reads much like a blog printed on paper, and is the link between Chick Lit and blogs: the fascinating subject matter known as Other People.
Of course, Chick Lit has been branded so for a reason: the topics of emotions, relationships, love and home life are identified with women.
Similarly, the new environment provided by the blogosphere is uniquely woman-friendly: a world of personal details, first-person accounts.
As writer Theresa Peralta says, "I always look for stories to tell in the smallest things. Especially the smallest things ... I manage to find stories to tell in everything I see happening. When I spent the summer at my cousin's house and didn't have anything interesting to write about, I spent the whole summer writing about poop and fart jokes that my family would tell at the dinner table."
And there is a definite community supported by bloggers, in which tips are shared, problems are solved and community is built -- the reason for comments, message boards, forums and track-backs.
Blogs are serial accounts of one person's life, the small details, the inner calamities. They are running commentary from one person's point of view. They offer singular perspectives on the world, often uncensored and uninhibited.
Blogs allow us inside the minds of strangers, opening doorways to new thoughts and ideas. Is it any wonder there's been an explosion?
Needless to say, the blogosphere is not the private domain of women. Men read blogs, too, and comment and share.
Suddenly the coffee klatch is open to men, too.
Why? because these things are not just for women. Relationships, community and interaction is not, after all, solely female. It is perhaps the human condition to be interested by the minutiae, the intimate details of another person's life.
In addition, blogs give men a "safe," un-emasculating way of enjoying typically female endeavors. With blogs, men are shielded by the technical aspect, the geek epithet. Blogging has not yet been feminized, nor has it been masculinized. The world of computers, previously male-dominated, has stumbled upon a new egalitarianism.
This is also partly thanks to the anonymity possible within the blogosphere. Readers don't have to identify themselves to the writer. They need not walk up to the bookstore counter with a big pink novel with high heels on the cover in order to read about someone else's life.
And writers don't have to identify themselves with anything more than a clever name.
Of course, many choose to do so; they put up photologs of their friends and families, include curricula vitae or favorite albums -- thereby, of course, increasing the possibility of sharing mutual interests and increasing community.
So are blogs the new Chick Lit? Possibly. Very possibly, if we broadly define Chick Lit as personal stories of heartache and triumph.
Moreover, blogs are a new foundation for self-expression and connection. They are like serial fiction where the action, protagonist, crises and problems are real -- and the reader can directly communicate with the author/heroine [or hero].
Blogs are offering a new way of connecting with the world -- and, like "Chick Lit," not likely to disappear any time soon.
Editor's note: The author is a blogger herself, thrilled to have stumbled upon a medium so perfect for personal rants. You can check hers out at supamb.blogspot.com
Erik Cassano thinks there's a sadistic genius in how the Marlins are run, and finds a history comparison dating to Connie Mack and the old Philadelphia A's.
By Erik Cassano
210 west Writer [send email]
The Florida Marlins are the cockroaches of baseball. And that’s meant in the most positive sense.
They can’t be killed off. They are only known to have existed since 1993, but after seeing their long, strange trip, it is entirely possible that this team has been here since the Precambrian Era, and will be on this earth long after man’s extinction. South Beach’s teal-accented contribution to the primordial soup.
The Marlins have been used and abused by their owners, pegged for contraction and consistently ignored by their fan base. They play in a stadium built for football in a town that beatifies Dan Marino but might not remember who started against the Marlins in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series (Jaret Wright).
For a town as thick with Hispanic culture as Miami, it sure isn’t much of a baseball town. The Marlins finished third-to-last in the majors in attendance this year. Even the 119-loss Tigers drew more.
But here they are. The unsinkable Fish. World Series participants for the second time in six years. Five postsea-son series wins in five tries. Two-and-0 in game sevens.
The 1997 Marlins were store-bought mercenaries in large part, wooed by the deep pockets of then-owner Wayne Huizenga, who didn’t want to wait for prospects to mature, and had enough money to be impatient.
The 2003 Marlins were built the honorable way, through good drafting, slick trades and the clutch free agent ac-quisition of Ivan Rodriguez.
But their fate may ultimately be the same.
The 1997 Marlins didn’t gush profits the way Huizenga thought they would, so bitter and burned by the apathy of the fans who didn’t show up to watch the ’97 championship run until September, he sold everyone off. Bobby Bonilla, Gary Sheffield and Charles Johnson to Los Angeles; Jeff Conine to Kansas City, Al Leiter and Dennis Cook to the Mets, Kevin Brown to Sand Diego, Moises Alou to Houston.
The 1998 Marlins went 64-98, and Huizenga sold the team to John Henry, who continued the indifference until he sold the team last year.
The 2003 Marlins appear to be built on a much stronger foundation. They’re younger, less expensive and were meticulously pieced together. But maybe they aren’t.
Pudge Rodriguez was signed to a one-year deal to revitalize his career, which he has done sufficiently. Now able to chase the really big money, he probably won’t be back in Florida next year.
On top of that, 16 Florida players are eligible for salary arbitration in the coming years. Losing all those cases could inflate the Marlins’ payroll drastically. And unlike Huizenga, current owner Jeff Loria seems to keep tight clamps on his wallet.
In the end, the Marlins might well into imploding their second straight championship team by the time pitchers and catchers report to spring training in February.
Not that it’s entirely bad. If the Marlins can topple the Yankees, they’ll have two more rings in six years than the Cubs, Red Sox, White Sox, and Indians have managed in more than half a century. For many teams, nine losing seasons in 11 can be damned if the other two years yield titles.
Connie Mack, the man who ruled over the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years, made a career out of buying low and selling high. For two stretches, he profited more than a dot-com spec buyer in the 1990s.
The Athletics of 1910-1914 were built around the pitching of Chief Bender and the “$100,000 infield,” which included Eddie Collins. The Athletics won four pennants in the time, and the World Series in 1910, ’11 and ’13. The “miracle” Boston Braves stunned Philadelphia as heavy favorites in the 1914 Series.
But, like in Florida, attendance was chronically sluggish. Collins, the team’s leading hitter every year they won the World Series, was sold to the White Sox in December 1914. Bender, winner of 23 games in 1913, was placed on waivers and signed with the short-lived Federal League, along with pitcher Eddie Plank.
The Athletics plummeted to dead last in 1915 at 43-109. They crashed to a rock-bottom 36-117 record in 1916, finishing 54 and a half games back. Philadelphia didn’t finished out of last place again until 1922, when they ended up one spot above the cellar at 65-89.
Like the Marlins, Mack’s bunch rose again from the dead in 1929. Powered by outfielders Al Simmons and Jim-mie Foxx, and the pitching of Lefty Grove and George Earnshaw, the Athletics trounced the American League with a 104-46 record, knocking off the Cubs in the World Series.
Philadelphia won two more pennants consecutively, defeating the Cardinals in the 1930 World Series and losing to them in 1931.
The Athletics fell to second place in 1932 and by the end of the 1933 season, Mack was at it again. Catcher Mickey Cochrane was sold to Detroit, Grove to the Red Sox, and Earnshaw to the White Sox.
The Athletics move to Kansas City and then to Oakland before they fielded a contending team again in the early 1970s.
The Athletics have had far more losing seasons than winning seasons in 102 years of operation, but the nine World Series titles they have won in their history tie them with the Cardinals for second-most.
Call it the Connie Mack backwards-template for success. Being cheap, spiting customers by intentionally throwing your best employees away, and keeping personnel in a constant state of turnover.
That formula would run Microsoft into the ground, but it made Mack a legend. And the Marlins appear to be doing a good job of imitating it.
Now that Arnold has been elected governor, Zach Baker hands an envious crown over to the state that was stupid enough to appoint a bodybuilding movie star its leader.
By Zack Baker
210 west Writer [send email]
As the cynics are almost done reflecting on the recall fiasco, I have a real problem.
I have never been able to spell “Schwarzenegger” correctly. Now I am in the difficult position of writing a column about him.
Yep, I will probably be doing a lot of cutting and pasting here.
You know, it's absurd. Every couple of years another state wants to win the crown of “dumbest state in the union.” In 1998 it was Minnesota, who looked at three candidates and decided that a former WRESTLER was the best choice.
Jesse Ventura is a bit of verbal hybrid. One minute he’ll say something that has you nodding in approval, and the next he has you wanting to scream for help. He spent his time getting more attention for appearing as a referee at WWF Summerslam and for being an XFL announcer than for being a governor. That’s probably a good thing. I find it ironic that a man who attacks the regular politicians in Washington for being self serving probably set the record for the most shameless self promoting acts of any politician ever.
And yet, Minnesota would have re-elected him had he run again.
Congratulations Minnesota, you had the nod as the stupidest state. (ok, in fairness, Ventura won with far less than fifty percent of the vote, so he hardly had a mandate. I am not a necessarily a Jesse basher. He is probably the best wrestling commentator ever. But that is where the admiration for his politics ends.)
Of course, Florida set new standards for state stupidity in 2000. I am not going to pretend to know who won Florida. Republicans generally believe that Bush did, Democrats fervently say otherwise. What I will say is that if people took more than five minutes to actually LOOK at their ballots before heading to the beach, this would have never occurred.
So Florida won it in 2000.
Then the crown returned where it should have always belonged.
Two words: California recall.
Call me old fashioned, but I generally believe that a winner of a state election should be allowed to screw up for the duration of their term. Provided that he or she breaks no laws, they should be given a ticket to mess up for as many years as their term is. That’s the fun of politics.
So excuse me for being against the recall. It’s the equivilant of the officials handing a football game back to the losing team because the instant replay they saw two days after the game revealed that the football hit the ground.
Gray Davis was not a good governor. But California elected him twice. They made their collective bed, now they need to do hallucinogens in it. Or something.
So now they have (here we go) Arnold Schwarzenegger as their new governor. Some people may say that criticism of Arnold is unfair, and that Jesse Ventura is an example of someone who can run a state without much experience.
I have railed against Ventura, but he will not go down as the worst governor ever. But that is because he had a financial surplus when he came into office. That is a big difference. A governor with a surplus has a job so easy they can moonlight as a football announcer on the weekends.
Arnold is walking into a huge problem here, and I don’t see how anyone could have looked at him and said: “He’s the best qualified for the job.”
He has never held elected office, never managed a deficit, never sat in an elected officials chair.
He may be a movie star, he may be well intentioned, and he certainly is the survivor of one of the most disturbing last second negative campaigns in American history.
But he’s not ready to be governor.
Congratulations California, the crown is yours. Wear it with pride
The Cubs already blew it, the Red Sox are about to. Dan Nied saw this coming a mile away. Now, is there any point for a fan to dream?
When Cubs' pitcher Kerry Wood tied the seventh game of the National League Championship Series at 3-3 with a two-run home run in the second inning Wednesday, the curse was all but officially broken, right?
Guess again.
While he dramatically tied the game early, on the mound Wood turned in what may have been his worst outing of the season. In turn, the Cubs couldn't find the runs to keep up with the Marlins and lost 9-6. Now, instead of seeing the Cubs in their first World Series since 1945, we get to see the Marlins in their second since 1997.
It was all too predictable and it was all laid out on the table like Sunday dinner placemats. The Cubs, up 3-1 in the best of seven series, needing one win in three games to get to the World Series, having Wood and Mark Prior -- two of the best young pitchers in the sport who hadn't lost back to back starts all season -- on the mound for games six and seven. The collapse was set up perfectly because the win seemed too good to be true. The curse strikes again.
This time it was more than just a fade down the stretch of the regular season. This time it was Cubs' fan Steve Bartman, in the eighth inning of game six with the Cubbies up 3-0, getting his mitts on foul ball that was destined for Cubs' left fielder Moises Alou's. It was Cubs' shortstop Alex Gonzalez, normally with a sure hand, inexplicably botching a surefire double play ball on the next batter. From there it was an eight-run inning that left the city of Chicago in a daze that is nowhere near ending right now.
This time it was Wood on the mound giving up three runs in the first inning. Wood? Three runs? The first inning? Impossible. That is, unless he was cursed. Even when Wood tied up the game with his shot that seemed destined for baseball history, the curse was just teasing Cubs fans.
Lets face it, the Cubs had no chance. At least not with supernatural forces controlling the baseball gods.
Speaking of no chance, as the Cubs were falling to a power higher than themselves, their east coast foils, the Boston Red Sox, were celebrating a come from behind game six victory which kept them alive in the American League Championship series against the Yankees. Game seven takes place today and the results are more predictable than last night's NLCS.
Either Pedro Martinez blows a rotator cuff at the pregame meal and Tim Wakefield is called in to start or Martinez throws nine no hit innings until Alfonso Soriano lays down a bunt in the 11thand three Red Sox errors allow him to touch ‘em all on a ball that never leaves the infield.
No matter what happens our dream as sports fans are dashed. Instead of the drama and the apocalyptic circumstances of a Cubs/Red Sox World Series, we'll get the Yankees and Marlins with all the charm of an antique outhouse. The Yankees will win and the powers that be in baseball, who or whatever they are, will all laugh at us for believing that the impossible can happen.
Maybe next year.
He's got an honest face and a fresh outlook, but Vince Guerierri is still sick of girls using him as a friend. He explains why he just can't take it anymore
By Vince Guerrieri
210 west Managing Editor [send email]
I was at work one day, trying to keep my head low and escape while it was still happy hour when a co-worker came up to me.
She told me that one of her mother’s friends told her she didn’t have an ass. “Is that true,” she asked. I’m assuming that she had an ass for all biological purposes, but she was asking me if she, as that philospher/poet Sir Mix-a-Lot put it, was packin’ back.
Now honestly, how the hell can I answer a question like that? As a journalist, I’m committed to telling the truth, and I did just that.
“I’m afraid so,” I said, tactfully leaving out the fact that when it comes to junk in the trunk, she’s got the back end of an ’82 Cadillac Seville.
She didn’t believe me until I took her out into the parking lot as the sun shone and made her turn sideways so she could see the shadow her lack of booty didn’t cast.
I try to lead a right life, and I don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble. But for some reason, women come up to me and tell me things, or ask me things for which there is no right answer, and I’m not quite sure why. The only things I can come up with are that I must have an honest face, or I did something bad in a past life.
I carried the torch for a girl in high school like, well, a lovesick 15-year-old. She was a goddess. I was a nerd. I found myself at a party my sophomore year, and she danced down the steps and sat down on my lap. She was a little inebriated, and leaned in close. The guy sitting next to me on the couch started elbowing me in the ribs. “Vince is gonna get laid,” he said.
“You’re a nice guy,” she said, which I learned is girlspeak for “I don’t ever want to see you naked.” “Make sure I don’t do anything stupid.” And I did to the best of my ability.
At least three girls in high school told me that if they weren’t going to the Prom with their boyfriends, they’d go with me.
Thanks for nothing.
During my first semester in college, I was in a chemistry lab of about 30 people, a good two-thirds of which were women (it was the intro chemistry class for nursing students). The lab was 9:30 on Monday, at which point my main concern was not setting my eyebrows on fire.
But one day, the girl next to me looked up from her Bunsen burner and said, “You’re a guy, maybe you can answer a question for me.” Looking back, that should have set off warning bells for me. But hindsight is 20/20, and what did I know at 18?
“Why do guys say that they need more space when what they really want to do is date other women?”
At that point in my life, I had been in one relationship, which ended when she got back together with her ex and just quit calling me and returning my calls. But because I was a guy, she thought I would have some knowledge for the situation at hand.
My sophomore year, a girl came into my dorm room, reeking of Marlboros and beer, and sat in my lap. She said, “I don’t know why, but when I get drunk, I get really horny,” and decided to tell me that she wanted the guy down the hall from me. She took off a couple minutes later, leaving me whimpering. I guess those who fail the lesson of history are doomed to repeat it.
My junior year, a girl down the hall from me asked me for change to do the laundry. I gave her four quarters, and she thanked me profusely. She told me she needed to do a load of whites because she was out of clean underwear, and casually dropped the fact that she wasn’t wearing any underwear at that point. I kept opening and closing my mouth, but no sound came out.
That same year, another girl told me she was going out with some of her girlfriends. “I hope I find a man,” she said. “I have one, but I’m only keeping him around for one reason.” I received a lot of advice when I recounted that tale. They said I should’ve said something to the effect of, “I can help you with that reason!”
But I learned the hard way that it’s probably better to keep quiet. The correct response to “Do these jeans make me look fat?” is not “No, your ass makes you look fat.” When a girl remarks that she’s been gaining weight, the best thing to say probably isn’t “If it’s any consolation, I still wanna see you naked.” One of my friends told me that probably was the right thing to say, just the wrong woman. I’ll try that again if the situation arises, and we’ll see if he was right.
Once in a while, someone asks why I never entered the priesthood. My flip answer is that I like dirty jokes and neckties too much (which, as it turns out, is the wrong answer to give a priest, particularly during confession), but in reality, I wouldn’t want to have to deal with situations like that every day, to be in a position where I’m forced to give good advice. I don’t do well when the situation presents itself.
But I’ve learned from my mistakes. So the next time a woman comes up to me and tells me that she’s in the mood for love but not from me, or that I’m a nice guy and won’t let her do anything stupid, or asks anything about her appearance, I know exactly what to do.
Run screaming from the room.
Zach Baker says that just when you thought no one could outdo Florida and Minnesota in the "Country's dumbest state" contest, along comes California to reclaim the crown that belonged there all along.
By Zack Baker
210 west Writer [send email]
As the cynics continue to pile on the recall fiasco, I have a real problem.
I have never been able to spell “Schwarzenegger” correctly. Now I am in the difficult position of writing a column about him.
Yep, I will probably be doing a lot of cutting and pasting here.
You know, it is absurd. Every couple of years another state wants to win the crown of “dumbest state in the union.” In 1998 it was Minnesota, who looked at three candidates and decided that a former WRESTLER was the best choice.
Of course, that grappler, Jesse Ventura, is a bit of verbal hybrid. One minute he’ll say something that has you nodding in approval, and the next he has you wanting to scream for help. He got more attention for his state by appearing as a referee at WWF Summerslam and an XFL announcer than by being a governor. That’s probably a good thing. I find it ironic that a man who attacks the regular politicians in Washington for being self serving probably set the record for the most shameless self promoting acts of any politician ever.
And yet, Minnesota would have re-elected him had he run again.
Congratulations Minnesota, you had the nod as the stupidest state. (Ok, in fairness, Ventura won with far less than fifty percent of the vote, so he hardly had a mandate. I am not a Jesse basher persay. He is probably the best wrestling commentator ever. But that is where the admiration for his politics ends.)
Of course, Florida set new standards for state stupidity in 2000. I am not going to pretend to know who won Florida. Republicans generally believe that Bush did, Democrats fervently say otherwise. What I will say is that if people took more than five minutes to actually look at their ballots before heading to the beach, this would have never occurred.
So Florida won it in 2000.
Then the crown returned where it should have always belonged.
Two words: California recall.
Call me old fashioned, but I generally believe that a winner of a state election should be allowed to screw up for the duration of their term. Provided that he or she breaks no laws, they should be given a ticket to mess up for as many years as the period is. That’s the fun of politics.
So excuse me for being against the recall. It’s the equivilant of the officials handing a football game back to the losing team because the instant replay they saw two days after the game revealed that the football hit the ground.
Gray Davis was not a good governor. But California elected him twice. They made their collective bed, now they need to do hallucinogens in it. Or something.
So now we have (here we go) Arnold Schwarzenegger as the new governor. Some people may say that criticism of Arnold is unfair, and that Jesse Ventura is an example of someone who can run a state without much experience.
I have railed against Ventura, but he will not go down as the worst governor ever. But that is because he had a financial surplus when he came into office. That is a big difference. A governor with a surplus has a job so easy they can moonlight as a minor league football announcer on the weekends.
Arnold is walking into a huge problem here, and I don’t see how anyone could have looked at him and said: “He’s the best qualified for the job.”
He has never held elected office, never managed a deficit, never sat in an elected officials chair.
He may be a movie star, he may be well intentioned, and he certainly is the survivor of one of the most disturbing last second negative campaigns in American history.
But he’s not ready to be governor, in my opinion.
Congratulations California, the crown is yours. Wear it with pride.
Rush Limbaugh's sportscasting career was done in by a media hungry for contoversy. Dan Nied says he has no one to blame but himself.
The facts of the Rush Limbaugh matter are this:
1) This country is too sensitive to issues of race. That tells me - more than Limbaugh’s remarks about Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb - that we live in an instinctively racist nation where issues of black and white are dealt with as carefully as someone would deal with walking on hot coals.
2) Limbaugh did exactly what ESPN wanted him to do and he was forced to resign.
3) Limbaugh does not think before he speaks.
We already knew the last two, but Rush did bring out the point of No. 1.
Limbaugh’s comments were not particularly racially insensitive. He actually made a point that can be argued and refuted. With all the fuss about minorities in sports, from NFL coaches to front office positions to, yes, quarterbacks. It might be accurate to say that Limbaugh was persecuted because a) he is Rush Limbaugh and b) because he was careless in choosing his battles.
Had Limbaugh said that the media was very desirous of a black coach succeeding, he might still have been banished from the sporting world but he would have been absolutely right, without any valid counter-argument. The point has been accurately made again and again that in the days of Steve McNair and Michael Vick, the black quarterback has already arrived and is in the middle stages of redefining the position. The pocket passer's days are numbred largely due to the role of quicker, more athletic black players at the position. Limbaugh’s argument was more suited for 1988, when Doug Williams was leading the Washington Redskins to the Super Bowl title, the first black quarterback to do so.
But why the outrage at such a harmless statement that wasn’t even directed at the black quarterback in question but at the media’s lionization of him? If Limbaugh’s ESPN Gameday cohort Michael Irvin, who is black, had said the same thing, nothing would have come of it.
But because Limbaugh is a hot air-filled conservative radio talk show host who was moonlighting as a sports anchor, becasue he isn’t known as the most sensitive guy on the planet and because he is - gasp - a rich white guy, the entire world lost its lunch over his remarks.
Are we so racially driven that the mere mention of race by a white guy sends us to the collective loony bin? In this case it seems that the media was looking for a juicy story. Who was Limbaugh to deny them a remark loosely based in race? With that remark Limbaugh gave them a chance to look at his pigment and controversial history, compare them with McNabb's pigment and clean cut history and create a race issue where none really should have existed.
Didn't ESPN hire him to ruffle some feathers?
In the end, perhaps Rush Limbaugh was done in by a media that was desirous of seeing him fail.
John Bujak scoffs at the Music Insudtry's refusal to embrace MP3's. He wonders why they try to stifle new technology when it could be the best thing that ever happened to their business.
So the music industry gave all of those file sharers out there amnesty, if they fess up, admit guilt and promise never ever ever to steal music again in any way.
What a brilliant idea.
Everyone who has ever downloaded a song should sign a sworn statement admitting guilt. That will streamline the legal process. Now you can download the form, fill it out, and be on your way!
Now to be fair to the recording industry, they do state that if you download the form, they promise never to prosecute you. Well, people, before you go signing your life away, it's probably best to consult with an attorney of some kind.
Why are they offering the public this get out of jail free card? Because they are planning on sending thousands of file-swapping, music-stealing people to jail. It doesn't matter if you shared or downloaded a thousand songs in your life time or just one. You are guilty and the recording industry is coming after everyone and anyone, mainly because according to them, their sales have been slowing since the introduction of such file sharing programs such as Napster in 1998.
But is this the best way to fix the problem? Is targeting individuals with fines starting at $750 per song the easiest way to handle the neverending transfer of mp3 files? Is charging a twelve year old girl with a crime and consequantly making her pay $2000 for a settlement the best way to get your message out?
In the early 20th century, when radio first came out, the music industry was in a hoopla over how people were able to receive their product for free over radio waves. It was going to cost them sales. However instead of attacking the radio companies, the recording industry ended up embracing them and increasing their profits. When the VCR first came out both television and movie companies were afraid that this new medium would hinder their profits and people would stop watching television or going to the movies.
Ultimately, the movie industry increased profits by offering movies for rental and licensing the movie to be bought at your local super store.
Why hasn't the recording industry attempted to embrace this wonderful new technology instead of fighting it? Sure The insdustry can say that they have tried to embrace with Apple's new pay version of Napster and with Metallica's Lars Ulrich's attempt to duplicate the Apple website.
Why are both failing?
Because Americans are cheap bastards. The majority of people are not going to pay 99 cents per song. This is the same reason most Americans are not going to pay $17.95 for a CD especially when many DVDs are coming out that are only $9.99 and offer the consumer so much more options and extras.
It seems though as technology continues to evolve and change typically the prices of the technology comes down. This has not happened with CDs. CDs have been around since the 80's and the consumer has yet to notice a tangible lowering of the price per disc. Many consumers wonder why a recording company can charge so much for a CD when it costs on average less then $0.005 per disc.
Now how can the recording industry fix this problem? I don't pretend to know all the answers, but I do pretend to know some. First they could offer more when buying a CD, many artist are including a DVD with their CD. The could lower the cost of a CD to under $10.00. They could embrace file sharing and run with it, offering the downloading of songs for a quarter.
Some pay sites will automatically erase the song after you listen to it so many times. That needs to be done away with. Perhaps the recording industry should also look at how MP3s are changing our world, many car stereos and home stereo systems can now play MP3 CDs. This allows for a greater number of songs to be recorded on a single disc. Instead of 15 songs per disc an MP3 Disc can hold well over 135 songs. If the recording industry wanted, they could embrace this technology, they could utilize the extra storage being saved on the Disc by including video, interactive trivia and other things that would entice people to purchase the CD itself.
If the recording industry thinks that by using scare tactics to stop people from file swapping will work, they are misinformed. What about the people with CD burners, how are they going to stop those people? Well obviously this dilemma is going to take some time to play itself out. But as it does the face of music will forever be changed, for the better or worse no one can yet tell.