It’s ON, America

On April 16, 2013April 17, 2013 By In Write FieldIn Random Stuff, SportsLeave a comment

The Green Building at MIT — The Green Building at Boston’s MIT. (Photo: Matthew J. Lee / Globe Staff)

Thirty-six hours ago, Americans were reminded of a few things. Obviously, and most painfully, we were reminded that no amount of security and vigilance can ensure our safety in the age of terror.

You may subscribe to the notion that nothing stops a bad guy with a gun, except a good guy with a gun. (I do not agree, although that’s a subject for another blog post.) But how do we stop a bad guy with a bomb? Or two? Sometimes we can, but on Monday in Boston we could not.

Today I’ve heard a few frustrated folks lament that an evil few can destroy the happiness and freedom of the many. I don’t think that’s the lesson here. Rather, the take-away message should be that there is more good in the world than bad. As Patton Oswalt (!) so elegantly put it in a Facebook post that has now gone viral:

“We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago…

When you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.’”

Much of that good has already been well chronicled this week, like the Boston Marathon runners, bystanders and volunteers who rushed toward Monday’s carnage as soon as it happened, rather than away from it. Acts of courage and selflessness were everywhere, witnessed by helpless citizens of the world who could only tune in via social media and pray.

By day’s end, Boston-area blood banks were fully stocked and thousands of residents had offered space in their homes to weary, terrified runners with nowhere else to go.

The New York Times suspended its pay meter (the tracking mechanism that prevents non-subscribers from reading more than a few online articles per month for free) to allow everyone access to news.

There were other acts of goodness, such as heretofore unseen restraint among most news outlets and social media users. We were all urged to corroborate what we heard, before presenting it as fact. Shocking tweets were challenged with, “What’s your source for that?”. Many outlandish rumors sputtered and died under the weight of scrutiny.

The New York Post was the most glaring exception, exaggerating the number of casualties and claiming that a suspect was in custody within two hours. The Twitter community rallied to bring the hammer DOWN on those hacks.

Even President Obama was careful when addressing the stunned nation. Some were frustrated that he avoided using the term “terrorism”. I suppose it’s reassuring to label a heinous act, as a means of trying to understand it, but I was glad that the President chose not to influence the narrative by using loaded words when he lacked facts.

Once we catch whoever did this, feel free to label it however you like.

On a similar note, most Americans took a holiday from bipartisan bickering on Monday. Let’s hope it’s an extended one.

As always, sports proved a great distraction and rejuvenator for me. Sports writers were especially respectful. Despite the tragedy they had a job to do, but most showed sensitivity. Hank Schulman, for example, tweeted this before sharing a link to his most recent blog post:

Teams everywhere celebrated life and courage and community, and they did it with class. The “United We Stand” banners at Yankee Stadium featuring the Red Sox logo? Those choked me up almost as much as the Yanks playing Fenway favorite “Sweet Caroline” tonight, as fans laughed and sang along. The resilient laughter – that’s what got to me.

In a way, sport is a great metaphor for the reaction to yesterday’s insanity. America is complicated and messy. Sometimes we behave badly, and fight ferociously amongst ourselves like a bunch of toddlers trapped in a room with only one toy.

At the end of the day, though, we’re a team. If you attack one of us, you’re going to face the wrath of all of us.

Pity the evil person or persons who messed with my team. We’re bringing our A game. We will win, because the good guys always do.

A Good Tweet Spoiled

On November 7, 2012November 7, 2012 By In Write FieldIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Twitter is a place where folks do their best to be clever in 140 characters or less. Some – like @bastardmachine, @jimmytraina and @BMcCarthy32 – succeed. I love their quick wit and irreverence.

Too bad we also have Twitter bottom feeders like Donald Trump. Last night as Barack Obama won a second term as our president, The Donald was tweeting crazy, inflammatory foolishness and tilting at windmills. (His “hair” never moved despite all that wind. But something tells me you knew that.)

Unfortunately, everyone already knows The Donald… primarily thanks to The Donald himself. There is nothing new to be gained by ridiculing the already ridiculous, so instead I invite you to consider another Twitter user you may never have heard of.

John Peterson is a professional golfer. A very handsome professional golfer. A 23-year old Texas native who graduated from LSU, he’s a three-time All-American and 2011 NCAA Division I Champion. You may recall that I blogged about him this summer, after his hole-in-one at the 2012 US Open.

He is also a Republican, and let’s just say Mitt Romney accepted Tuesday’s outcome with a lot more grace than John Peterson did.

The tweet that really got me was this one:

I can at least be gratified that this only got 23 retweets.

This guy is a college graduate right? When was the last time he read something other than a scorecard, like maybe a newspaper? Or traveled to a place that doesn’t have a golf course? He postures like someone who is politically savvy but come ON. Switzerland?

I mean, Switzerland is great. However, while tax rates are similar to those in America, the cost of living is very high. A 2009 report by Union Bank of Switzerland showed that residents in Geneva and Zurich pay approximately 20% more for products, services and accommodation than others in Western Europe. What’s more, the Swiss pay approximately 45% more for food.

Another insightful tweet, this one about the rising price of gasoline in the U.S. — which is all President Obama’s fault, naturally:

Actually, I suspect any Swiss resident would be thrilled with $6 per gallon gas — today, or four years from now. Based on a quick internet search, a gallon of gas in Bern, Switzerland will apparently run you $7.38.

Better be sure the Gulfstream’s tank is full before you leave, John.

Switzerland is a tolerant society, and discrimination against homosexuals is constitutionally prohibited. In fact, thanks to a 2005 national referendum, Swiss same-sex couples enjoy the same rights as married couples in next of kin status, insurance, taxation, and shared possession of dwelling

Oh, and there is no state religion in Switzerland. I’m just saying.

What might surprise Peterson most is Switzerland’s health care law mandating that everyone buy coverage, which is subsidized by the government. Wait, I thought Republicans did not APPROVE of healthcare mandates?

I wonder if John Peterson has confused Switzerland with The Swiss Colony? Could be that the guy just loves a good cheese log.

A few more tweets from John Peterson are below. Unfortunately, he deleted several others advocating secession from “the Union” by “the Confederacy” (which according to John, is where the last truly brave Americans all reside) before I could capture the images.

Two Men, One Moderator and a Stopwatch… I’m All Atwitter.

On October 17, 2012October 18, 2012 By In Write FieldIn Politics1 Comment

Binder baby — http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com

The Presidential debate: I dare to blog about it, even though it’s only been 24 hours since it occurred and it’s already been beaten to death.

One of the best, rhetorical questions spawned by Tuesday’s debate came from Joe Posnanski. “How can people who are still undecided by this election decide who won a debate?” In other words, if you are partisan (like most of us) you probably think your guy won. But if you are still one of the inexplicably undecided, I suspect at this point you just hate both candidates equally.

It’s true, unless Barack Obama suffers some sort of cataclysmic neurological event on stage, and goes all Madness-Of-King-George on us, I’m voting for him. So when I watch the debates, it’s really for two reasons:

First, it’s above-average people watching. I am always amazed by how silly grown men — and sometimes women — can be in the political arena when egg timers (and network audiences) are involved. It makes me squirm. It’s a car crash, but I can’t look away.

I have a few tips for the candidates based on my observations, free of charge:

Do not whine about how you got only 5 minutes to “answer” the question about gun control – albeit with random arguments about higher education – but your opponent got 6.5 minutes. It is unseemly, and no matter how solid your argument may seem to someone with a stopwatch… you wind up sounding like a 6-year-old waiting his turn to play Angry Birds on the family iPad.
Ditto on pouting because you believe you are due a chance to respond to your opponent, but the moderator says it’s time for a new topic. It’s impossible to avoid sounding like a preschooler screaming “Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!”.
Do not be rude to the moderator, especially if she is female…. and most especially if you are courting women voters. (And let’s face it, why wouldn’t you be courting us, because we are awesome!) As a strategy, it’s just plain flawed.
If you made a huge gaffe in the past few weeks — say you hypothetically, callously accused nearly 50% of Americans of being dirtbag blood-sucking leeches, and that was a haymaker for your opponent — you may not want to make unsolicited claims of support for “100%” of the population. For those of us not thinking about your gaffe just then… well, you just said the word “percent”, so we’re thinking about it now.

I also love these debates for the jokes on Twitter.

If you are an active tweeter you generally fall into one of four groups:

Bitter bigots who are unable to correctly spell their, there or they’re. In rare cases when these folks penetrate the defensive moat around my carefully cultivated twitter community… there’s an I-will-block-you function and I’m not afraid to use it.
Very, very funny comedians, pundits, and bloggers.
“Personalities” who are the objects of ridicule of these comedians, pundits and bloggers. (Think, Donald Trump.)
Anonymous Dilbert types whose comedic talents are wasted in the desolation of cubeville. They love Twitter because the jokes are funny, and mostly true, and once in a while they crack a few good ones of their own.

I’ll leave it to you to decide where I fit.

You’ll find lots of “best debate tweets” out there today. Here are a few of mine….

And That’s No Joke

On August 21, 2012September 11, 2013 By In Write FieldIn Baseball, Random StuffLeave a comment

I have a strong aversion to heckling, both the giving and receiving of it.

When I was studying in Britain, a friend ran for student government — despite the fact that being heckled is a traditional part of the political process there. I was horrified. Who would voluntarily put themselves through that, for a position that doesn’t even pay?

Indeed, the Brits take their heckling seriously. Based on what I see on C-SPAN, in Parliament there are lots of boos and hisses directed at whomever is speaking, with a bit of contemptuous clucking thrown in. In contrast, at President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address, Mitch Daniels shouted “Liar!” and was nearly tossed out of chambers by the scruff of the neck.

British citizen hecklers are even tougher, and more specific. In June, Prime Minister David Cameron got the full treatment from a volunteer at Olympic park: “Shame on you, David Cameron! You are crippling the poor in London. Shame on you!”

Based on my very unscientific sampling of British hecklers, I’d say they aren’t trying to get a laugh from the crowd… except at sporting events, especially soccer matches. When facing a German team, for example, British fans might yell out “If you won the war, stand up.” Pretty witty, right? And it has historical significance! Hard to conjure up a speedy comeback to that one, in English or in German.

I have yet to encounter such clever wit at American sporting events. I am convinced that in the United States, only the dumbest-of-the-dumb heckle… and they nearly always seem to be sitting near me.

Lowbrow heckling is difficult for me to understand, as most fans buy their tickets in advance and have plenty of time to prepare (and even test out) zingers if they choose to. Yet once they let loose I am usually left wondering, “Is THAT the best you could come up with?”

An old standby heckle at baseball games involves someone chanting, “What’s the matter with (insert umpire’s name here)?” to which the crowd responds “He’s a BUM!” Not really a side-splitter, but even when surrounded by kiddies there’s no real harm done.

A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to catch a game from just behind the San Francisco Giants dugout, so close that I could have reached out and grabbed a player (if it weren’t for those pesky restraining orders). That is Giants President & COO Larry Baer’s territory, and for the most part fans there are low-key – less because of Larry, than because they all want to look like they belong there.

There are always a few exceptions though, and at that game it was a fat, drunk, loud fool two rows behind me who I suspect did NOT purchase his ticket himself. He was apparently delighted that he could scream insults that could be heard not just by players, but also on TV. (One of his buddies called his cell, to let him know the folks back home in the double-wide were following along.)

His bellowed chant (to which only he responded) went something like:

“What’s the matter with Fowler? He SUCKS! YOU SUCK FOWLER. YOU SUCK.”

Not funny or clever. He even got the slow head turn and stink-eye from Momma and Papa Baer. Yet a few random folks tittered… and he was thus encouraged to continue. I’m not sure if my neighbors actually found him humorous, or if they just thought they were supposed to laugh.

This brings me to Sunday’s game between the Cleveland Indians and the Oakland A’s. Before the game, All-Star closer Chris Perez was antagonized by a heckler who completely set him up; When Perez lost his temper and let loose an obscenity-laced tirade, the heckler’s buddy recorded the exchange on his iPhone. (Note: If you have an issue with the F-bomb, this video is probably not for you.)

I’m particularly disappointed that Perez took the bait because… COME ON. This knucklehead has apparently sought to provoke him at every Indians/A’s game played in Oakland for the past four years, and his heckling is PATHETIC. Aside from calling Perez a REALLY bad word at the end, here is the best of his heckling.

“Blow some more saves, bro. Blow some more saves.”

“Get a haircut.”

“You’re garbage. You are garbage… Way to prove yourself, garbage man.”

Really? This is the best he could do? After pitching his 20^th save in St. Louis on June 10, Perez threw up on the mound, in front of a stadium full of people. That’s comedy GOLD. What about something like, “Perez, you can’t save a game. You can’t even save your lunch“? But the genius heckler from Oakland went with “get a haircut”?

Some of the best responses to heckling can be found on Twitter. Sportswriters like Hank Schulman (San Francisco Chronicle), Buster Olney (ESPN) and Tim Kawakami ‏(San Jose Mercury News) are popular targets, as are athletes like golfer Rickie Fowler. Most Twitter cyber bullies who hide behind their anonymity, and the lack of physical proximity to the guys they seek to antagonize, usually end up looking like fools — often because they can’t spell their, there or they’re correctly.

Ah meatheads on Twitter, and the wise ones who vanquish them. Two gifts that just keep giving.

Tweet This!

On January 23, 2012January 23, 2012 By In Write FieldIn Random Stuff, Sports1 Comment

At this point, nearly everyone knows that the San Francisco 49ers will not be going to the Super Bowl this year. They have also heard about the two fumbles by wide receiver Kyle Williams that helped cost us the game, and the threatening messages he received via Twitter afterward.

I was reluctant to write about the 49ers’ loss, and the extreme reactions to it by some. What more is there to say, that hasn’t already been written, blogged or tweeted? But yesterday’s events raised several questions that lingered in the back of my mind all day.

Why does Twitter bring out such hatefulness, particularly on the topic of sports? Some chalk it up to the anonymity that is available with social media. They say people lose the will to censor themselves, if their words can’t be traced back to them. This may be true in some cases, but most of the comments I saw yesterday came complete with full names and photos attached. If these guys thought they were incognito, they are even dumber than their tweets suggest. (Why is it that the nastiest tweeters are also incapable of spelling the word “you’re” correctly?)

Perhaps it’s less a matter of anonymity, than of proximity (or lack of it). I doubt that yesterday’s tough-talking-tweeters would have been so bold, if a 49er had been within swinging distance.

Are these folks just uber-competitive athletes who love and understand the game better than the rest of us? Doubtful. I envision washed up high school sports heroes long since gone soft, and guys who passed out towels after practice… but like to pretend they did a whole lot more. Regardless, they know nothing of sportsmanship, teamwork or compassion.

Where does that kind of venom come from? Alcohol? Probably a factor, but that’s the Mel Gibson defense which always seemed a little shaky to me. Alcohol may give you liquid courage to blurt out something you shouldn’t, but it doesn’t plant the idea in your head and heart in the first place.

I sense the pack mentality at work. At its best, Twitter is a conversation, and just like in face-to-face interactions participants want to be liked – even admired. We want to make other people laugh. We are flattered and validated by follows and retweets. So it’s easy to dog pile on a struggling pitcher after his fifth walk in two innings, each tweet a little more biting than the last, to keep the conversation going. If he can’t take the heat, he should stay off Twitter, right?

On the whole, I think social media is a blast. But just like in “real life” I choose who I interact with carefully. I surround myself with people who lift me up, make me laugh and challenge my thinking. In turn, I try to stick close to my values and apply common sense rules to my part of the conversation. If the person I’m writing about read this, would I feel guilty? Could I look him/her in the eye and say it? Would I be OK if a stranger wrote something like this… about me? If the answer to any of these is “no”, I do the digital equivalent of biting my tongue, and hit delete.

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