RandomFailure

Now onto something that won’t win this Duke grad and fan any friends…

I am tired of the Duke basketball haters. Mostly because it’s become so commonplace as to be rather passé. Even a former Duke head coach’s daughter is a Duke hater. (See her column.) That’s low.

And there’s no longer any originality to it. I mean, come on people! Most of you are college students with plenty of free time on your hands. Surely you can pour some of your hate into creativity.

Let’s cover some of the more common topics.

1. Duke Sucks! Oh, this is real original. But it’s understandable. It’s a visceral reaction. I get it. They hate us for our freedom. No, wait. Those are terrorists. They hate us for our victories. That’s it. Surprisingly, the North Carolina and UConn haters must be absent or non-existent. But some people think UConn is now the team to beat (see article).
2. [Player Name] Is Gay! Oh, brother. I thought today’s college students were supposed to be more enlightened and accepting of the differences between people. Silly me, sometimes I believe what I read in the newspaper. This point of view was rather graphically expressed by a Temple student behind me while waiting in line for the subway after the Duke-Temple game this past Saturday. Does Adam Morrison have to put up with this?
3. Duke gets all the calls! I really don’t get this one. Honestly. I think you mean to say “Duke doesn’t get called for fouls when I think they should get called for fouls!” This argument is based on the truism that Duke makes more free throws than their opponents attempt. I was going to counter with the argument that Duke did not lead the nation in that category, but the statistics prove me wrong. As of this writing, Duke is #1 in number of free throws made, and #5 in number of free throws attempted. (See the team free throw stats from ESPN.com. You can sort them for yourself.) Damn statistics!

   The difference here, I believe, lies in when the fouls are called. Are they called while the player is shooting or not? That’s where you should be looking.

   And there is a bias towards calls going to star players, regardless of team. Watch some other team with a star player. Count his steps. Does he travel? If so, did it get called?

There are probably more topics, but these are the most common. This little discussion would not be possible on a more open forum (like the ESPNation boards) as trying to reason with a Duke hater is pointless.

This blog has now been polluting the Internet for two years and one day!
And for the hell of it, a Google search on “internet pollution” reveals 43,700,000 hits. No, it’s not all because of me. I haven’t even hit 200 posts yet.

The Olympics start tomorrow night. And I couldn’t care less. I used to be a huge, huge fan of the Olympics. I could recite every venue in order from 1896 forward. Yes, I was a dorky kid. And my sister and my fiancee are likely to say that I’m still a dork.

I don’t really recall when or why I soured on them; it just sort of happened. Maybe it has something to do with the end of the Cold War and the fact that it’s no longer “Us versus Them”. That was when the Medal Count meant something. Now it just seems like ridiculous overkill.

I remember watching the “Miracle on Ice” from the couch at my grandparents’ place in Florida. I was allowed to stay up late that night to watch since the place was small, I slept on the couch, and my father was watching the game.

Now through the “magic” of the Internet and 24 hour cable TV, surprises such as that are non-existent. You can find out the results from other news outlets before you see the TV coverage here in the U.S. And that’s another thing that bothers me – the TV coverage always focuses on crap I don’t want to see. Like Figure Skating.

Far be it from me to stay away from a controversy involving freedom of speech. I am a very strong proponent of free speech, regardless of whether it offends or not, and of the “marketplace of ideas” concept. Which is: if you start saying enough crazy things, people will ignore you. (Just like this blog, for example.)

If you want to read a great overview of the whole controversy and see the cartoons themselves so you know what this is really all about, check this WikiPedia entry.

If not more important than the article itself is the very short list of newspapers, including four in the United States (as of this writing) that have reprinted one or more cartoons. I am surprised that it’s such a short list of U.S. newspapers. And more pleasantly surprised that my local rag, the Philadelphia Inquirer is one of them. (See their article, which does not reproduce the cartoon that appear in Saturday’s paper.)

It’s very difficult to understand what all the fuss is about without seeing the images that caused all this in the first place. And then, some explanation is helpful. See an article from the BBC.

Now the one thing that I don’t understand is that if images of Muhammed are forbidden, how does anybody know what he looks like? If you look at the cartoons, there are only vague similarities between any of the images. So which one, if any, is “correct”? And if someone has an answer, how can they be sure if there are no other pictures to compare it to?

It’s easy to take your freedom of speech for granted. But for the sake of something you might care about in the future, don’t let this slide by you.

Well, the Grammys are going on right now. And I could care less. (As if you couldn’t tell from me writing this during the show.) I’ve really had it with all these awards shows. It’s devolved into a bunch of self-congratulatory crap. Rich and famous people giving each other awards. And getting goody bags worth lots of money. (Or is that only for the Oscars?) Though I will admit that I do want to watch the t few minutes of this year’s Oscars to hear Jon Stewart’s opening. But after that, it’s channel changing time.