It’s hard to get my Mom to shut up. However, when in the middle of a week where I had multiple tests and an array of papers do I managed to do just that.
No I don’t have any secret method to share with all of you. Lets just say that even throughout everything going on, I had just recited the trials and fates of all my hometown sports teams, professional and college, from memory as well as listing off a couple stories my Mom didn’t know about. She was shocked. She shouldn’t have been. The writing was on the wall when as a kid I was always stealing the sports section and checking the box scores on my favorite teams. It should have become clearer when she learned that in high school I ditched a day of school and caught a ride with a friend up to Boston for the Red Sox World Series parade in 2004. Not an easy task seeing as I was at a boarding school in Connecticut at the time. Needless to say, sports have become a major part of my life. Most friends look at me like I’m crazy when it comes to the level of passion and devotion I give to my friends. The truth is, I can’t follow a team for 162 games (baseball), or 82 games (basketball and hockey), or 14 weeks (football) with out falling in love with a team. The worst is baseball where with the long season and the almost daily games you can start living and dying by each pitch.
Now while this might seem like just another crazy fan rant, the truth is that I’m strangely not the only person to feel this way. Even though it seems I might be the only person at SMU that feels this way. Sports here have about the intensity and fun of a little league match where you don’t know any of the kids. The passion is practically non existent from both fans and players. Perhaps it’s the small school, perhaps it’s the fact that everyone is so busy. Perhaps it’s simply that neither the students nor athletes care. I stopped counting the number of times I saw athletes out drinking and complaining about coaches and workouts. I stopped going to games because they just simply lacked energy. I’m not saying this is true across the board, occasionally there was a basketball game that brought back some of that energy I’ve lived and died with over the years. Even the hyped inter-league sports, also known as the Greek sports league, is rather dull as most players drink before or during games. Great social event, bad sporting event. What do you think it would take to turn this around? A winning season from a team? The fans would need to provide some inspiration. A school that fed to the big leagues? Not likely to change seeing as only one person was drafted from SMU in the recent NFL draft. And it was a kicker. Compared to similar schools like TCU (their football team alone is ranked 7th in the nation and had 5 members drafted into the NFL this year alone, and don’t get me started on how good their baseball team is, or their two-peat champion equestrian team), SMU is certainly lacking something. What do you think it is?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Write Well not Good
Since 2003 I’ve been reading weekly columns by Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy. A Boston native with a heart for comedy and, well, Boston sports, he constantly writes whimsically about his experiences writing from a fans perspective rather than from a reporter's. He’s become a cult favorite and one of the most read authors on ESPN.com.
Why though? Perhaps simply because he’s a good writer.
Since the dawn of time there has always been good writers and bad ones, just these days it seems the distance between the two has been growing at a drastic pace. With the dawn of reality TV shows, bad writing has almost become habit as an ignorant audience gobbles up celebrity magazines and trashy novels at an astounding rate. Surely no one is going to be awarding TV shows like the Hills and Real Housewife’s of Orange County SAG awards. (Also if you don’t think these shows are scripted, watch next time for how specific conversations always take place in front of cameras and people just so happen to all be at the same place all the time.) In general the public has embraced this form of reading, which has given way to just plain bad writing.
TV shows such as House, Lost, and Heroes survive due only to the fact that they’re so well written. While I can’t stand Lost or Heroes, I respect the creative integrity that is put into each episode. I respect the time that Bill Simmons puts into his columns to make them fun to read. I respect authors who can capture emotions and build plots such as the playwright Eugene O’Neill or the writer Tim O’Brien. To often now, slapped together books that are poorly written gain notoriety because they “reflect our present youth culture” (yes a direct quote about Twilight from an unnamed college student).
It’s time to start finding books that we can celebrate because they’re well written. Not because their draining our culture by making us dumber.
And yes I realize the irony in having a bad writer in college write a post on this issue. But would you really listen to an established writer complaining no one was reading his work?
Why though? Perhaps simply because he’s a good writer.
Since the dawn of time there has always been good writers and bad ones, just these days it seems the distance between the two has been growing at a drastic pace. With the dawn of reality TV shows, bad writing has almost become habit as an ignorant audience gobbles up celebrity magazines and trashy novels at an astounding rate. Surely no one is going to be awarding TV shows like the Hills and Real Housewife’s of Orange County SAG awards. (Also if you don’t think these shows are scripted, watch next time for how specific conversations always take place in front of cameras and people just so happen to all be at the same place all the time.) In general the public has embraced this form of reading, which has given way to just plain bad writing.
TV shows such as House, Lost, and Heroes survive due only to the fact that they’re so well written. While I can’t stand Lost or Heroes, I respect the creative integrity that is put into each episode. I respect the time that Bill Simmons puts into his columns to make them fun to read. I respect authors who can capture emotions and build plots such as the playwright Eugene O’Neill or the writer Tim O’Brien. To often now, slapped together books that are poorly written gain notoriety because they “reflect our present youth culture” (yes a direct quote about Twilight from an unnamed college student).
It’s time to start finding books that we can celebrate because they’re well written. Not because their draining our culture by making us dumber.
And yes I realize the irony in having a bad writer in college write a post on this issue. But would you really listen to an established writer complaining no one was reading his work?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The fall of the Newspaper
Welcome to the slacker generation. Gossip rules the world. People who sit in the pajamas all day and own 12 cats can determine the outcome of the nation. This is the future of our journalism world. Networking sites have made us lazy and relaxed in the idea that we can always get quality information from a source or friend that we've met. People assume that their contact is all they need even when strong journalism skills are sometimes needed. The Sports Guy, a popular sports critic, has even started picking up on the problems that transition has given us in newspaper reporting. Observing on something as normal as an injured basketball player Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy, claims:
"I grew up reading Bob Ryan, who covered the Celtics for the Boston Globe and remains the best basketball writer alive to this day. Back in the 1970s and early '80s, he was overqualified to cover the team. In 1980, he would have sniffed out the B.S. signs of this KG story, kept pursuing it, kept writing about it, kept working connections and eventually broken it. True, today's reporters don't get the same access Ryan had, but let's face it: If 1980 Bob Ryan was covering the Celtics right now, ESPN or someone else would lure him away."
This clarifies the path that newspapers have started down in recent years. Writers and editors have left for higher paying jobs at internet sites in recent years. This has drained the the quality of the newspapers as well as given a higher quality to the more immediate and faster paced internet sites. The detrimental effect of failing newspapers is the sort that has not yet been seen in both economical, political and journalistic since the start of written press. The fall of the newspaper is something that will affect us all in ways that we will only truly realize after it is gone.
"I grew up reading Bob Ryan, who covered the Celtics for the Boston Globe and remains the best basketball writer alive to this day. Back in the 1970s and early '80s, he was overqualified to cover the team. In 1980, he would have sniffed out the B.S. signs of this KG story, kept pursuing it, kept writing about it, kept working connections and eventually broken it. True, today's reporters don't get the same access Ryan had, but let's face it: If 1980 Bob Ryan was covering the Celtics right now, ESPN or someone else would lure him away."
This clarifies the path that newspapers have started down in recent years. Writers and editors have left for higher paying jobs at internet sites in recent years. This has drained the the quality of the newspapers as well as given a higher quality to the more immediate and faster paced internet sites. The detrimental effect of failing newspapers is the sort that has not yet been seen in both economical, political and journalistic since the start of written press. The fall of the newspaper is something that will affect us all in ways that we will only truly realize after it is gone.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
"But I Really Do Have An Evil Twin..."
Imagine you have an evil twin.
He constantly gets you in trouble and you have been arrested before and have your prints and DNA now on record with police.
Now imagine your evil twin pulls a multimillion dollar jewelry heist at one of the countries national landmark stores. He slips up however and accidentally leaves behind a glove with some DNA in it.
However your genetic markers are so close that you and your twin can't be told apart by your DNA and are therefore let go. This is due to a hole in the law that says a single person must be definitively placed at the scene of the crime, not to people. However, since your release the police plan to monitor your movements and actions closely.
Sounds like a plot line for an Ocean's Fourteen movie right? Wrong.
This is the real life story of two German twins who successfully pulled off a multimillion dollar jewel heist and will never see the inside of a jail cell for their crime.
This brings to question, just how many criminals are we letting slip through the cracks and should we be punishing our criminals more severely? The twins did have a record and managed to still escape punishment for this crime. What do you think should be done?
He constantly gets you in trouble and you have been arrested before and have your prints and DNA now on record with police.
Now imagine your evil twin pulls a multimillion dollar jewelry heist at one of the countries national landmark stores. He slips up however and accidentally leaves behind a glove with some DNA in it.
However your genetic markers are so close that you and your twin can't be told apart by your DNA and are therefore let go. This is due to a hole in the law that says a single person must be definitively placed at the scene of the crime, not to people. However, since your release the police plan to monitor your movements and actions closely.
Sounds like a plot line for an Ocean's Fourteen movie right? Wrong.
This is the real life story of two German twins who successfully pulled off a multimillion dollar jewel heist and will never see the inside of a jail cell for their crime.
This brings to question, just how many criminals are we letting slip through the cracks and should we be punishing our criminals more severely? The twins did have a record and managed to still escape punishment for this crime. What do you think should be done?
Monday, March 16, 2009
Advertising...Everything
Advertising is today's most influential form of communication.
It accounts for billions of dollars of spending every year which in turn generates many more billions into the pockets of those who advertise. Ads are judged during the Superbowl, Brands are catapulted into our heads on buses and trains, and the average American can expect to see most metropolitan roads littered with billboards.
With so many messages out there it seems everyone and everything is being promoted.
The USA Government is no exception. Their promoting Marriage.
I'll let that sink in.
It is a true wonder that this initiative is being continued in our current economic state. While the Obama administration continues to furiously work to block bonus money going to AIG executives and other workers, it seems odd that they would spend money on developing an advertising campaign for a traditional institution such as marriage. (To even party lines, the initiative was first developed and passed by the Bush administration.) While perhaps the divorce rate is higher than it was during the crusades, the threat of death from the church is no longer prevalent in our community which means marriage is viewed in a very different way. However the advertising campaign isn't targeting divorce. Or issues such as gay marriage. It's solely about getting married. One reporter, Sharon Jayson, said it was merely a declaration of "research suggests a bevy of benefits for those who marry, including better health, greater wealth and more happiness for the couple, and improved well-being for children". Those are the reasons we're spending a six-seven digit big chunk of money on promoting. Happier lives. For those of us still dealing with the economic problems in the real world, it seems our government is still figuring we'll just pay for the bail outs latter.
It accounts for billions of dollars of spending every year which in turn generates many more billions into the pockets of those who advertise. Ads are judged during the Superbowl, Brands are catapulted into our heads on buses and trains, and the average American can expect to see most metropolitan roads littered with billboards.
With so many messages out there it seems everyone and everything is being promoted.
The USA Government is no exception. Their promoting Marriage.
I'll let that sink in.
It is a true wonder that this initiative is being continued in our current economic state. While the Obama administration continues to furiously work to block bonus money going to AIG executives and other workers, it seems odd that they would spend money on developing an advertising campaign for a traditional institution such as marriage. (To even party lines, the initiative was first developed and passed by the Bush administration.) While perhaps the divorce rate is higher than it was during the crusades, the threat of death from the church is no longer prevalent in our community which means marriage is viewed in a very different way. However the advertising campaign isn't targeting divorce. Or issues such as gay marriage. It's solely about getting married. One reporter, Sharon Jayson, said it was merely a declaration of "research suggests a bevy of benefits for those who marry, including better health, greater wealth and more happiness for the couple, and improved well-being for children". Those are the reasons we're spending a six-seven digit big chunk of money on promoting. Happier lives. For those of us still dealing with the economic problems in the real world, it seems our government is still figuring we'll just pay for the bail outs latter.
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