Psychoness

lol.
from FOUND magazine.

More on the cheating Pats and Belichick's take on J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon

So I wrote about how I didn't think this whole Pat's cheating scandal was that big a deal here. Well here's a completely different take on it from one of my favorite football columns, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, written by Gregg Easterbrook. While I think he goes a little bit overboard, especially because I believe the heart of the NFL's popularity is how its rigid salary-cap and profit-sharing system maintains parity, Easterbrook raises some scary rumors about Belichick.

And the Patriots' cheating might have been more extensive than so far confirmed. Fox Sports reported that former NFL players believe Belichick had microphones installed in the shoulder pads of defensive linemen so the Patriots could tape other teams' offensive audibles and line calls. Needless to say, putting microphones on players violates NFL rules. Andrea Kremer of NBC reported that several teams might charge the Patriots this week with having stolen playbooks from the visitors' dressing room. The convenient "malfunction" of visiting teams' headphones at the Patriots' two fields under Belichick seems to have happened far too often to be an IT department error. The rumor mill says Belichick, Richard Nixon-style, has file cabinets of info on opposing coaches and assistant coaches – some gleaned honestly, some obtained by cheating.

That last bit sounds like Hoover to me, hence the title. Anyway, read his article, I'm beginning to feel myself shifting camps here.

Barry Manilow is a petulant child

...and corrosive to the fabric of an open, democratic society.

Apparently, Barry Manilow backed out of a scheduled appearance on the View, the best of daytime TV, because he didn't want to be interviewed by Elisabeth Hasselbeck because of her political views. Yeah. You read that right. Hmmmmm. Who else can I think of who only allows himself to be interviewed by people he agrees with....oh yeah....a certain president who has a single-letter nickname? Hmmm? Manilow, by the way, is a solid left-winger, as can be seen here, at the NYTimes' political donations search engine (I know I just dissed them yesterday). He donated $2,300 each to Obama, Hillary, Edwards, Joe Biden, and surprisingly, Ron Paul. I also seem to remember him being associated with some sort of left-wing causes, but I can't recall exactly.

Anyway, so Manilow's a leftie while Hasselbeck is pretty conservative, so here's what his website says:

Hey guys,

I wanted to let you know that I will no longer be on The View tomorrow as scheduled. I had made a request that I be interviewed by Joy, Barbara or Whoopi, but not Elisabeth Hasselback. Unfortunately, the show was not willing to accommodate this simple request so I bowed out.

It’s really too bad because I've always been a big supporter of the show, but I cannot compromise my beliefs. The good news is that I will be on a whole slew of other shows promoting the new album so I hope you can catch me on those.

Love,
Barry

OMG that makes my blood boil. 'This simple request'...what?! How is it possibly a 'simple request' to ask a show (any show) to not have one of their main hosts present while you are a guest? At best it is impossibly misguided or ignorant, while at worst it is slimy, repulsive, and arrogant. Then, he tries to make it seem ok, by saying 'but I cannot compromise my beliefs.' What beliefs? That differing views are beneath your discussion? That you will somehow be physically compromised by your proximity to a conservative (albeit a gorgeous one)? That like-minded liberals will think less of you because you dared speak with one of the others?

TMZ originally broke the story here. Apparently he said to the site in a statement that he thought Hasselbeck's views were "dangerous". Well, let me fill you in on something Barry, in an open society, when we think views are dangerous, we don't run away from them and don't listen to them....what kind of message does that send? to anyone....friends, allies, enemies, even your children? In an open, free society Barry, we debate and argue and discuss, we share different experiences and points of view, and we TRY TO CHANGE THE OTHER PERSONS MIND. If you find her views dangerous...go up there and tell her! Lay out a reasoned, civilized argument as to why she is wrong, and why her beliefs are counterproductive (disclosure, I actually do think she is a little loony, and some of her views are quite disgusting). don't run away like a petulant child. it's juvenile and corrosive, and possibly evil. don't make ridiculous and impossible demands to satisfy your self-righteousness. WIN THE ARGUMENT.

Of course, the times isn't all bad

In my research for my previous post, a diatribe against the new york times, I of course ran across something really cool, just to prove myself wrong. Well, check out this slideshow of 17thC Dutch art, so awesome. This is my favorite:

New York Times comes full circle, makes website totally free...again

I used to like the NY Times a lot, unfortunately I've come to regard it with a little bit less respect, actually a lot less respect, in recent years. In fact, I don't even have any more NYT RSS feeds anymore. I do finally see what my conservative friends are talking about when they say 'liberal media bias', especially with the Times, which really is just too biased sometimes. These days I prefer my news from Slate, the Globe & Mail, and the BBC (not exactly a fantastic recent record either, but whatever).

First was the Blair scandal, with the guy who made up all the stories, which the paper itself called "a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper." Some of my favorites from the Wikipedia article:

• In the February 10, 2003 piece "Peace and Answers Eluding Victims of the Sniper Attacks", Blair claimed to be in Washington, stole quotes from a Washington Post story and made up quotes from someone he had not interviewed. Blair ascribed a wide range of facts to a man featured in the article, almost all of which the man in question denied. Blair also published information that he had promised to the man was off the record.

• In the October 30, 2003 piece "US Sniper Case Seen as a Barrier to a Confession", Blair wrote that a dispute between police authorities had ruined the interrogation of suspect John Muhammad, and that Muhammad was about to confess, quoting unnamed officials. This was swiftly denied by everyone involved. Blair also named certain lawyers as having witnessed the interrogation who were not present

Classy, real classy. The next event that eroded my confidence in the "paper of record" was Judith Miller, and her amusingly pathetic role in convincing the world that Saddam had nukes. My personal favorite piece on the matter is Maureen Dowd's scathing, vicious, and totally awesome hack-job on "Judy" (to use Dowd's patronizing moniker of choice). You can find it here.

Further erosion of my faith in the paper has come from its pathetically biased coverage of the Duke Lacrosse case...covered in detail at Durham-in-Wonderland and other blogs, and also in KC Johnson's new book, (which I havent read yet).

Maybe the final straw, however, to me, was back in 2005, when they made the entire online paper a subscription service, when it was all free before. It ran so counter to the obvious trends of the internet, of openness and of sharing data. We are clearly moving towards news organizations becoming a nexus of information, and subscription is counterproductive. Check out the "Ten Things Google has found to be true" here, its kind of part of Google's mission statement and vision. Google NEVER would've done what the Times did. It seems to me that had someone at the Times asked a Google exec what they thought back in '05, they would've told em not to go subscription.

Well, of course it failed and the Times went back to open content, but kept 'TimesSelect' for its op-ed contributors. They're the only ones I want to read at the Times anymore, so I was further driven away from the paper. Finally, oh finally, however, things have come full circle.

The New York Times Co said on Monday it will end its paid TimesSelect Web service and make most of its Web site available for free in the hopes of attracting more readers and higher advertising revenue.
TimesSelect will shut down on Wednesday, two years after the Times launched it, which charges subscribers $7.95 a month or $49.95 a year to read articles by columnists such as Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman.

Hah! Take that! I'm still sticking with Slate and the BBC thought, the only time I'll be on the NYT is for Brooks and Friedman now.