Clarion Content

The story is only a week old, and the NFL effective buried the lead by announcing the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal the same week star quarterback Peyton Manning became a free agent.

Perhaps, if you are not a sports fan you have not heard about the story. According to the NFL, the Saints had an organized bounty program to reward players for knocking opposing teams' players physically out of the game, cash bonuses for incapacitating them via injury.

The hue and cry about this discovery from the talking heads in the media, especially at ESPN¹, has been ludicrous.

Our view, "What a bunchy of smarmy politically correct nonsense!"

The Clarion Content has no love for retired quarterback, and noted publicity hound, Brett Favre, but we think he got it right in this case. Favre said essentially, bounties or no bounties, it is a tough guy's league and people are basically trying to knock you out of the game on every play.

We at the Clarion Content cannot stand all the sanctimonious carping of the media mavens, like Dan Patrick, about how awful, how wrong, how devious these bounties the Saints put out on opposition players were.

Pul-leeze. The same folks who have been moaning about the NFL turning into flag football are suddenly horrified by bounties?? The same folks who were running weekly segments called "Jacked up!" and laughing their butts off at huge de-cleating hits are now disturbed by bounties??

Uh, huh, what?

It comes as a shock to you folks that the defenses were trying to knock quarterbacks and other star players out of the game? Really? That's a surprise?

Or it was the part where they were getting paid extra for it that bothered you morons?

Isn't that what their salary was for to begin with? NFL defensive players are performing a glorified version of the little kids' game, "Kill the Guy," week in and week out. Now somehow, because there are bonuses ponied up by the players involved its amoral?

What a crock!

Forgive the harsh language, but it is the same bullshit we see across a litany of other capitalist contexts. Whatever egregious violation of human rights or environmental degradation is being wrought, so long as it keeps costs down and it is largely behind closed doors or unreported, the mass of morons, will casually bury their heads in the sand and deny it is even happening. What Walmart/Nike/MNC X is paying little kids pennies a day in Asia to make our toys/clothes/crap? Eyes shut tight, head buried in sand, "No they aren't. No they aren't."

Undeniable mass media exposure brings said scandal to light, and the tune changes to "Oh wait, they are. Dang. Somebody needs to do something about that. Now! That's terrible."²

The standard political correct operating procedures see sanctimony rear its ugly head, and those caught out blantantly being abusive are punished, but real systemic change is never considered.³

In this case, sports is once again a microcosm of society. The reality is football is a hyper-violent sport. Kids are paralyzed and permanently injured playing the game every year. High school and college players sustain thousands of concussions annually, for a shot to make it into a pro league where the minimum annual salary is nearly $400 grand a year. Sudden traumatic death and/or disabling injury is an obstacle, but no kid ever thinks it is going to happen to them. Many serious injuries happen on otherwise seemingly innocuous plays.

Fans cheer the big hits. Violence sells.⁴

Pro football is a multi-billion dollar sport, and they play to win the game. To foolishly single out the New Orleans Saints, to pretend that their deliberate attempts to injure opponents are somehow unique is beyond ludicrous, it is civil hypocrisy of the most society annihilating sort. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Don't blame the player, change the game. Or accept that Americans are getting what we pay for, a brutal violent contest between highly compensated young athletes.


Notes
¹One of the leading practitioners of yellow journalism today.

²A similar example: Joseph Kony has been running the LRA conscripting child soldiers and committing a litany of heinous crimes for more than twenty-five years, only now when the visual evidence is positively shoved down their proverbial throats are the masses reacting. During the reign of King George the II, more than 5 million people died from civil war in the Congo, there was no hullabaloo. No call for intervention, Americans, en masse, ignored the tragedy.

³This is why most American's are fine with the United States intervening in Libya and equally fine with the United States ignoring the wholesale slaughter in Syria. It is the left to the morally stolid, the John McCain's, Ron Paul's, Dennis Kucinich's, Noam Chomsky's of the world to point out the blatant hypocrisy. Alcohol related hazing is treated the same way. 1) Deny it. 2) Over-punish the individuals involved when tragedy occurs as it inevitably will periodically. 3) Ignore the system until it happens again in such a way that the horror is an unavoidable spectacle.

⁴Why do you think Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) took off just when they started trying to limit the violence in boxing? Why did NASCAR, for all its attempts to run and hide from its roots, suddenly bring back the "Rubbing is racing" mantra when attendance and ratings figures started to fall off a cliff? In America, violence sells.

Labels: economics, ESPN, Ethically questionable, NFL, sports, Sports Economics

Hey fearless readers, here is the latest batch of interesting, noteworthy and follow-up links.

This first one is kind of a bummer, because it is more evidence of just how lax American nuclear security has gotten. You might recall the Clarion highlighted this worry a few weeks back, when we discussed the unauthorized, accidental, flight of six nuclear weapons over the Continental United States in August. We continue to be amazed that this issue hasn't gotten more play. Now here is another incident. In this ugly case the commander of one of America's nuclear submarines had to removed. He and his crew hadn't been performing proper safety checks on their submarine's nuclear reactor for more than a month. And they had been falsifying records to cover it up. Great. The Clarion would hate to have to make "loose nukes" a subject tag. (Blogger calls them labels.)

Here is another link that is a follow-up, this one on the crummy job of covering sports ESPN is doing these days. The link is to a story by their own media ombudsman, who chronicles how ESPN over-hypes and under researches their stories. The Clarion completely agrees. ESPN is the Access Hollywood of sports. Everything is a scandal. There is a tabloid mentality. We haven't watched any of it, but word is their coverage of Philadelphia Eagles coach, Andy Reid's family's story has been woeful. Admittedly, these days, ESPN radio is no worse than many others who have imitated their model. Every day's coverage is based on how can they generate hype within the 24 hour cycle. In this mode, the sports media have aped an awful habit of the mainstream news media, tabloidization.

The Clarion has three musical links for you brought to the mill via differing threads.

The first link is a thoughtfully and artfully mixed up take on Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

The second link is a live acoustic performance by beautiful, Brazilian musician, Seu Jorge. Slap on the headphones. The sound quality is terrific and the man's voice is transcendentally rich. Perfect at moderate volume before work, or for that matter, after. The Clarion was introduced to Jorge through a co-worker and the movie The Life Aquatic. Jorge has an album due out this year.

The final musical link is courtesy of the Japanese anime Rurouni Kenshin. The link is to a performance by the funky Japanese pop band, Judy and Mary, who did among other things the theme song to the Rurouni Kenshin series. It is gloriously groovy with a deeper edge. If this clip doesn't make you want to see a live show...hint you must watch to the end. Unfortunately, occupational hazard, we missed out, the window slammed shut when the band broke up in 2001. Thankfully there is youtube. The Clarion was alerted to this link by an anime afficiando in our area.

Finally, we offer two environmentally fascinating links for your reading pleasure.

The first link is about a newly formed canyon in Texas. Or more accurately, a newly reappeared canyon, and even newly is a relative term here. Back in 2002, an overflowing reservoir in Texas scraped clean a limestone canyon hidden under thousands of years of sediment. The surge of water exposed in just three days of flooding a previously hidden canyon up to eighty feet deep in some places. Because of the amazing finds ranging from six, three-toed dinosaur footprints to hundreds of other fossils dating back over 110 million years the canyon has so far only been open to scientists. A few weeks ago it opened to the public as Canyon Lake George, ostensibly with very limited visits and careful scrutiny to limit the potentially averse environmental impacts of tourism. (Is this more worrisome in Texas?)



The final environmental link and the final link period for what has become a lengthy post, is about a previously dormant volcano coming back to life a few weeks ago in Indonesia. The volcano's name, Anak Krakatau, means Child of Krakatau. It formed in the Sunda Strait after Krakatau's legendary volcanic eruption felt worldwide in 1883. Anak Krakatau is spewing, shooting flaming rock hundreds of meters in the air. Fortunately, because of its isolated location within the Indonesian archipelago it poses no danger to the public.

Labels: ecology, ESPN, interesting links, Politics, technology, television

A couple of quick updates from the editorial desk on some older posts...As predicted, it is "whoopee" a whopping 10.57 million units sold for the Wii. The Nintendo Wii has now outsold it’s competitors in the next generation gaming system contest to date. It has passed Microsoft XBox 360, which got out to an early lead, and relegated Sony’s Play Station III, to 3rd/last place. Sony’s Play Stations have traditionally been the latecomer, the last to be released system, but have taken over total sales down the final stretch. This time, however, the momentum seems to be shifting in Wii’s direction. As the Clarion noted previously, word on the street is big for the Wii. The gamers love the bowling, boxing and tennis. Big sports game designer EA Sports has announced it going to shift programming resources to develop more games for the Wii.

ESPN’s SportsCenter is lame and getting lamer. The Clarion hammered ESPN a few weeks back for an awful, cheesy segment on SportCenter called “Who’s Now?” It was atrocious claptrap, faux-faux make news from nil. It was reminiscent of the days when ESPN Classic was doing Sports Century specials on Anna Kournikova, proclaiming her one of the athletes of the century. Turns out the Clarion wasn’t alone in his upset and distaste with the inane “Who’s Now?” segment. ESPN’s Ombudsman reports that this was one of (or the) single most commented on piece of the year for SportCenter, “No single topic has ever drawn the volume and intensity of unsolicited complaints to either my or my predecessor's mailbox that this sports popularity contest has.” See her article here.

Finally from the world of golf, a few months back the Clarion detailed the mouthy South African trying to run it at Tiger Woods. Mistake Rory Sabbatini, mistake. It blew by so fast at the beginning of August the Clarion didn’t get a moment to drop a note on it, but Sabbatini who had baited Tiger, got a chance to play against him in the final round at Firestone Country Club. Tiger is not a man to talk smack to, he is in the Michael Jordan mode of competitor, talk smack to Tiger and he will administer the beat down. In the final round of the Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone, Tiger took the folding Sabbatini apart by eight strokes. The Clarion was reminded of Sabbatini’s final round choke because he grabbed the first round lead at this week’s PGA tournament in Westchester. And he promptly imploded in the second round, like the gagging bum he is, from a 63 in Round One to a 71. In a monument to how irrelevant the newly instituted Fed Ex PGA not-playoffs are, Tiger didn’t even bother to show up for this week’s opening round tournament. He will advance anyway. Don't ask. Not only are these playoffs utterly meaningless, because Tiger wrapped up the Player of the Year award when he won his Major at the PGA, but the payout is tricked up, too. The PGA Tour and Fed Ex are billing them as having a $10 million dollar payday for the winner. Ooops, except, the winner doesn’t get $10 million, 2007 dollars, instead they get annuity worth $10 million only available when they reach age 52. (Untouchable until then, and subsequently devalued by years worth of inflation...not that it is anything to sneeze at, but it isn’t a $10 million dollar prize per se, either.) Two hot golfers besides Tiger to keep an eye on in next year’s Majors, the finally healthy Ernie Els, and the up and coming, bigger in the bigger moments, K.J. Choi.

One more update, this one on Britney Spears, the Clarion continues to pine for her recovery and rehabilitation. She is getting some help from her old media rival, Christina Aguilera. The talented singer Aguilera has booked Spears to headline the opening of her new nightclub, LAX, in the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. Hopefully, Brit in contrast to her recent foibles, can have a good gig.

Labels: ESPN, golf, Pop Culture, sports, technology, television

Is it us or does ESPN play like a network designed by fifty somethings to appeal to twenty somethings? It has a feel like an old person in a college bar trying to talk cool and pass off like they were one of the kids. Lame pretenders.

Let the Clarion offer up a couple of examples, from yesterday's Sunday night baseball telecast. ESPN was and is trying to create a sense of urgency about the baseball trading deadline. About every other half inning, they were going to the Baseball Tonight desk for updates. The only problem is they don't have any! So we have to listen to a less than telegenic, 62 year old man, Peter Gammons, blathering on, despite having no news. He tells us Mark Texiera is the most likely position player to be traded. An inning later brings the stunning revelation that there are no starting pitchers are available. Octavio Dotel is the most likely reliever to be traded, yo ESPN, this could have been the lead to a baseball trading deadline story four days ago!! Why are you cutting to it live now? Just because more cut aways from your live telecast create a false sense of urgency? And poor old Gammons, what an embarrassment. He was once a respected and credible journalist. He was a good read, who even in his salad days, was never made for TV. Now has become such a shill, such a company man, that he never says anything outside the box, newsworthy, inventive, controversial---staid dullesville thy name is Peter Gammons.

If that isn't annoying enough, they are also every half an hour going to their SportsCenter 30and30. This is ostensibly the leading SportsCenter headlines interjected rudely into the middle of your baseball game. Only once again, their major malfunction is they have no news to report, so we have to look at the ludicrously over coifed Karl Ravech's mug twice an hour to hear him report that Barry Lamar was 1-4 with no homers today in the city by the bay. That's right, get this straight, the jerk made no news, hit no homers and they think it is attention getting and worthy enough to keep telling you that every half an hour. Ridiculous. What this is really telling the savvy viewer is ESPN doesn't believe anyone watches for longer than half an hour. They can keep telling you the same non-story over and over because like a news radio station, they figure you are just flipping by, rather than actually stopping and watching their crappy channel. Amazing.

As you have read in this space before it is our contention that SportsCenter is equally atrocious. Our first viewing in months, this morning, did nothing to dissuade the Clarion of that view. Rather than report sports news, SportsCenter has been utterly devoured by the Disney marketing machine. In addition to the myriad of pointless but sponsored segments, they are cross promoting Disney kids' movies. The underdog of the week feature is somehow supposed to be related to the Underdog, the movie, which is reportedly horrible. The SportsCenter anchors are so embarrassed by this blatant plug that they neglect to even acknowledge it before they cut to the allegedly connected highlight.

At SportsCenter they have no interest in ferreting out or even covering hard news stories. Parent, Disney, is an entertainment company not a news-information service firm, ala Dow Jones & Company or Bloomberg L.P. This is an important distinction because although format gives the pretense of news, SportsCenter is little more than puff and fluff. This not to say there aren't excellent journalists doing credible work for ESPN, there are. It is highly unlikely you will get to see them on SportsCenter or if you do they will be caricatures of themselves indulging in obsequious buffoonery, ala John Clayton and Sean Salisbury on the Four Downs segment, where they are encouraged to yell at each other as if they worked for Vince McMahon. This week's? This month's? version of that foolishness brings the viewer an NCAA style tournament bracket pairing, addressing the all important question, "Who is Now the Sporting World's biggest superstar?" A total joke, from the people who brought Sports Century, athlete's of the century, Anna Kournikova. The Clarion wouldn't even have been able to report on this morning's imbecilic discussion about who's better Tiger or Peyton Manning at all, if it hadn't been for the mesmerizing Erin Andrews. All set to grab the clicker and surf away, Erin lured us back. Perhaps that is the ultimate message, we, the sports fan, keep looking SportsCenter, as crummy as it is today, nostalgically hopefully. There is a dearth of quality competition. The next best substitute is provided by the same folks, ESPN News. SportsCenter is an aging colossus, a shell of its former self that is waiting to be toppled. Heck, even Dan Patrick has left the network. But for now, we're still watching albeit much, much less frequently than we once did.

Labels: baseball, ESPN, sports, television

It is soooooooooooooooo annoying to have the Sports Center minute or any other video stream automatically open whenever one goes to ESPN.com.

It is as bad or worse than a pop-up ad.

If one wants to see that garbage, one can click on it, or find it endless repeating on the ESPN TV network. (Except on Saturdays and Sundays, when normal working stiffs would be home to watch it, then, there is no repeating SportsCenter, instead there is fishing or talking heads. Morons run this network.)

Someone needs to tell the head honchos to quit making the video link pop open without being requested.

In addition to being annoyingly agressive, it is too data rich. Even on a cable modem, every time one goes to ESPN.com, it is all one can do to pick another link off of and away from the main page as fast as possible because the main ESPN page is slowing down everything else the system is trying to do...

like playing iTunes music, which is another reason the dang pop-up SportsCenter minute is annoying...if one is listening to music, and if one navigates to ESPN.com, suddenly there is somebody, unrequested, talking over the music.

On the Clarion's iBook, one can’t mute only one without muting both, so we desperately have to search for the pause button to shut up, Neil Everett or whomever is blathering on...ad inifintum...ugh

Labels: ESPN, Pop Culture, television

TV programming note...

Doesn’t ESPN’ SportsCenter seem increasingly vulnerable? It is a cliche of itself at this point. It seems to only exist as an advertising and cross promotion vehicle for ABC/Disney. From the Budweiser Hot Seat, to the Gatorade Ultimate Highlight, everything is sponsored. The focus is less and less on the field and the games. This loss of focus has caused SportsCenter to lose its way. Flash over substance has often led to spending for more time on irrelevant minutia than the big games. Today’s show, for example, has longer highlights of regular season Arena Football contests than it does of some of the NCAA Tournament games!!?

ESPN backed by the Disney monolith has scared off competitors with dollars. They have more money; therefore they have the best commentators, the coolest graphics, the most resources for coverage. Those of you old enough to remember CNN/SI will say SportsCenter competitors have already tried and failed. But it says here, the time is ripe for a new challenger to take up the mantle. SportsCenter is stale.

Labels: ESPN, sports, television

The ESPN mobile phone has got to be in the top ten worst business ideas of the last year. “Yeah, right Disney, everyone wants to buy your phone, simply because it can get scores.” It is not high tech enough for the uber-geeks, and not enough of your standard-geeks are sports fans. The crossovers (uber-geeks who like sports) have a phone that can get scores already, simply because it gets the internet. The niche ESPN-Disney is aiming at is way too narrow. It doesn’t help that they guy they had doing their initial ads was the most annoying commercial spokesperson since Crazy Eddie. Dude trying to break into the ESPN center at Bristol, what? Pul-leeze. "Get a life" was the common response and that is not what you want people thinking when they are considering purchasing your product. Evidence, ESPN-Disney is now offering $150 cash back to anyone who will sign-up to take one of the darn things.

Labels: ESPN, Pop Culture

ESPN, NASCAR and the INDY 500 among other rants and thoughts

How funny was the ESPN commercial airing last week referring to the Indianapolis 500 as, “the biggest IRL race of the year.” Hey ESPN buffoons, there are no other IRL races that ANYONE gives a rat’s ass about. You can’t give away tickets to the rest of the IRL season and even the biggest racing fans can’t name a single other IRL race. Even people who like the silly open wheel cars, they could still name five Formula One races well before they could think of any other IRL race.

Danica Patrick, as big of a boon as she has been for the Indy Racing League, has moved it from the level of Equestrian Horse jumping, e.g. competitive weaving has more fans, to the level of the Trotters, almost semi-matters exactly one day per year. (The Hambletonian) Quit kidding yourself, ESPN honchos. NASACAR rules the American auto racing universe. Heck, even on your sister network, where were king Regis Philbin and the delightful Kelly Ripa broadcasting from ? I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t from the track where they were holding “the biggest IRL race of the year?!!?” Try again. They were at the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR’s tenth or twelfth biggest race of the year. I’d give you the link to the NASCAR schedule, but their website is atrocious, more pop-ups and annoying ads than a porn site.

On another note, Richard Petty is creep, who needs to quit embarrassing himself. Why do reporters even go to you for quotes, you old goat ? Duh. Because they know that you’ll say something so stupid and backward that it will be newsworthy, like last week when he went Bobby Riggs on the idea of female racecar drivers, when asked about Danica Patrick.

"I just don't think it's a sport for women," Petty said in an interview with The Associated Press. "And so far, it's proved out. It's really not. It's good for them to come in. It gives us a lot of publicity, it gives them publicity. But as far as being a real true racer, making a living out of it, it's kind of tough."

Brilliant Richard, crawl back into your hole and shut your yap. All one needs to know about Richard and his attitudes is, in a state where Jesse Helms was repeatedly elected, and NASCAR is the next most popular sport to ACC basketball, Richard Petty got trounced running for public office. Enough said. Richard Petty sexist old goat

Danica Patrick on the other hand has been nothing but gracious, composed and well-spoken in every interview I have seen with her. She deserves a ride in a real racing series, ASAP, at least, get her a Busch car. Persons calling her the new Anna Kournikova need to check themselves, Danica isn’t in this to become a model or date hockey players, she’s already married. Her focus is clearly on doing everything she can to become a first rate racecar driver. Heck she was “borrowing” her parents truck at age ten. Now that’s a driver in the NASCAR spirit.

Michelle Wie, who won’t even be bothered playing women’s events, now there’s a candidate for the next Anna Kournikova, all publicity seeking, no substance. Hey Michelle win something, anything, even on the Nationwide Tour, then give us a call, until then try to keep your PR people in check. Looks to me (albeit from afar) like Anika Sorenstam could kick your ass up and down the course on an off day.

Complicity in over-promoting Michelle Wie, just one more reason why SportsCenter has started to suck. Thank the powers that be that at least we don’t have to watch every single Barry Bonds at bat. At least until next year when he is DHing in the AL and chasing Hank.

One more NASCAR note, Michael Waltrip started 43rd and finished 41st at the Coca-Cola 600!! Any of you who know something about NASCAR are probably not surprised. Waltrip is one of all of sports, all-time overrated, gravy training athletes. He couldn’t carry Dick Trickle’s racing helmet to the track. Waltrip has made his career off his brother’s coattails, which have long since disappeared. He has made far more commercials than he has ever won races. His peers know Michael Waltrip isn’t good enough to be considered even an average Nextel Cup racer. Even when given a great team and the best equipment available, which is what it is all about in recent vintage NASCAR, Waltrip has still sucked ass. Now that he has his own team, look for him to get worse and worse before hopefully disappearing completely. Waltrip has made Kyle Petty and George Bush, the second, look like guys who made it on their own merits. Michael Waltrip’s career stats are so bad NASCAR.com hides them. They have their reasons, having wildly over promoted him, based on his alleged good looks. But the more resourceful can find that in 654 career races Waltrip has had more DID NOT Finishes (DNFs) than Top Tens, and never had a season where he averaged better than a 16th place finish. Michael Waltrip is a gravy training career loser

Labels: ESPN, NASCAR, sports