All you need to know about 24-hour media...

It's an old saw of journalism which states: "Dog Bites Man is not a news story, because that's what dogs do.  But Man Bites Dog is newsworthy because that is rare and different."

But that logic falls completely apart when it comes to media coverage of trials. 

Exhibit A that is played out in ABSOLTUELY EVERY news story about a pending trial: "The defendant's attorney claimed his client was innocent."

That's like reporting that the sun rose in the morning, traffic was bad during the a.m. commute and sugar tastes sweet.  In fact, there is no news value whatsoever in reporting on what a defense attorney says pre-trial.  Ever.  Their job is to get their client off the hook.  That job can only be done by professing innocence.  And of course they will do there job with no regard for the truth.

So why interview them at all?  Because by doing so, the media achieves balance, but more importantly they have some content.

It's a ridiculous dance the media do every time the is a high profile trial.  And we all listen to it.

Our Point in History - Storms

If you are in your 40's you remember being younger and looking at historical data regarding storms and natural disasters.  And as you read the newspapers or watched TV about a particularly bad storm happening at that time, you would wonder: "Is this the worst tornado/hurricane/thunderstorm/flood ever?"

And then you would do a little research and you would always find the historical context.  "No, this particular disaster is not the worst in history.  Why the Great Tornado of 19XX or the Massive Hurricane of 18XX was much, much worse."

It always seemed that there was some storm back in time that was the biggest and badd-est of all.

But not anymore.

From now on, the next huge storm will surpass the storms of last century.  By our own hand we are now living in and will continue to live in the Golden Age of Storms.  Deny all you want, but climate change and massive populations and the like are mixing together to make the next century a real showstopper. 

And every new season is going to bring a new Weather-pocalypse to some town, city or village that will be the worst, with the most damage and the most casualties. 

It's just the world we now live in.

The NFL Headlock.

I'm a pretty progressive person and hold a lot of skepticism for corporations especially when it comes to slick marketing when they tell us they care deeply about their customers and employees.  Anytime I see some advertisement that tries to pull on heart-strings or see some kind of promotional or PR campaign aimed at appealing to sentimentality, patriotism or humanity, I tend to call BS.

And, being a long-time PR person, I tend to be more seasoned and wise than the average Joe when it comes to all things BS-ery.

So with that preamble, offered, one would think the NFL and I have long parted ways.  I mean, can you name a corporation, more repugnant and dishonest and slimy and slick and sugar-coated and American Flag saccharin BS-table?

No, and I can't either.  The NFL, doesn't care about its players safety.  The NFL wants its poor and middle class fans to buy stadiums for billionaire owners.  The NFL, is fine with players beating up women until it hurts their bottom line.  The NFL is fine using tax payer money to buy ads that tell us how much this multi-billion industry cares about our troops.

The NFL is the ISIS of sports.

But, the game is amazing.  The game, unlike ANY other sport is an event - An event DURING THE REGULAR SEASON that can't be missed.

My God.  People (including me) give up a weekend to watch a show about selecting employees for this corporation. We pay attention year round with reverence.  We care almost as much in July as we do in December. 

The NFL owns us.  They are this huge wrestler with a massive headlock on our attention and our wallets and our allegiance.

Rooting for a Loser that Becomes a Winner

You don't understand.  I mean, you do, if you are a lifelong LA Clippers, or Cleveland Browns or Chicago Cubs fan, but unless you are, then you don't know.

I have been a Golden State Warriors Fan since I was a teenager.  I grew up watching Mullin, and Hardaway and Richmond excite and raise the level of hope - only to watch it all ebb away because of Don Nelson and Chris Cohan and bad luck, and worse decision (Todd Fuller over Kobe Bryant!!!).

But now?  Today, the Warriors are not just the best team in the NBA, they don't just have the MVP and a cadre of great players and an amazing rookie coach - they actually have something far more important and precious.  They have predictable greatness. They simple don't make mistakes that can't be overcome. They do ALL the right things and none of the wrong ones.

I watch them - with all my previous 20 years of negative fan baggage - and they do nothing, NOTHING, to disappoint me.

It's like watching the class geek, the kid everyone picked on and ridiculed, come back during summer vacation from college and he's tall and good looking and cool, and has a super hot girlfriend and a new car.  But more, he's funny, and charismatic and harbors no ill will toward everyone who teased him - for the past 10 years!  He's simply evolved past everyone back home and he's so obviously better that all you can do is watch as he drives past in the sick red sports car with the super model girlfriend and nod your head in shocked admiration and wonder, "how did that happen.

That, ladies and gentlemen is the 2015 Golden State Warriors.

And you don't understand unless you've lived your life rooting for a team that was almost genetically predisposed to failure - only to see them now become world beaters.

It's incredible..

What To Do About Jameis Winston

What do you do when an athlete's exterior embodies everything you want to root for in a player, yet their interior is everything you want to root against?

I give you Heisman Trophy winner and first overall draft pick Jameis Winston.

First the exterior. 

An African American quarterback with obvious pro-style offensive skills and equally obvious leadership skills.  To simply look at him behind an offensive line, scanning the defense and finding the open receiver, is to see the progress we've made in the NFL: an obviously great athlete, leader and passer who is an ideal candidate to fulfill the promise that Donavan McNabb couldn't and RGIII hasn't. In short, as a progressive and a football fan, Winston is the guy you really want to root for to shut down the subtle traditionalists and closeted racists who still doubt the ability of a black QB to become a superstar.

But now, the interior. 

At best he is a petulant and immature jerk who has been coddled and protected and told since a very early age that he's special an normal rules don't apply.  At worst, he's a rapist, a thief and a world-class misogynist.

What am I supposed to do with all that? I so want Jameis Winton, the African American quarterback to succeed, but I also deeply desire Jameis Winston the jerk to fail.

And furthering my angst is the inescapable feeling that the toxicity of the interior will pollute the exterior.  In other words, Winston is now a standard-bearer. He now represents ALL black quarterbacks. And in our society today, that means that if he fails, he fails because the exterior is a deeply flawed construct. He fails because all the haters were right - a truly black quarterback (sorry Russell Wilson) can't succeed.

Ryan Leaf was allowed to fail for being a jerk, but if Winston fails it will be because he's just another black quarterback who couldn't handle the rigors of sport's most demanding position.
I guess the only thing I can truly hope for is Winston's success on the field and enormous person growth off of it.  

Observations about the Texas motorcycle gang violence from very far away...

Two quick observations from the shootout between two rival biker gangs in Texas.

First The police were already there, ready for violence.  And yet, 9 people were shot and killed and more than 100 injured.  Again, "the good guy with a gun trumps a bad guy with a gun" myth is just that...a complete and total myth.  If bad guys have guns, they use them.  Good guys don't stand a chance.  Keeping guns out of the hands of bad guys is the only sane course of action.

Second, can you imagine what the police response - both pre and post violence - would have been like if the combatants had been the Bloods and the Crypts?  I'm just saying.  Yes, there is a huge police presence outside the restaurant where it happened, but after looking at national TV coverage, I don't see a single tank, or M-WRAP or other assault vehicle.  And oh by the way, the police are getting death threats as I write - yet no grenade launchers and urban assault vehicles.

Again, just sayin'.

I played and coached high school football. I love the game and consider myself a huge fan. Even so, I won’t let my 13-year-old son play tackle football today or when he gets older. I’ve decided the risk of head trauma is way too great.

And while my tiny decision won’t even make a ripple in the mega-corporation that is the NFL today — it really could in the future.

And how, you may ask, could the action of a no-name father in Oregon make any difference to league executives in New York?

Because in our hyperconnected world, trends matter. Trends start small like tiny currents, but eventually they snowball into raging torrents.

The trend of regular kids who could and probably should play football but won’t is the big problem for the NFL.

See, the business model of pro football is not unlike that of a gold or diamond mine in which billions of tons of rocks must be sifted and crushed and moved to unearth a few precious metals or stones.

According to the NCAA, there are 1,108,441 high school football players in America today. Those high school football rocks are extracted and divided and dumped into the college football mining cars until that raw ore is reduced down to the final beautiful shining treasures that are the 1,696 NFL players we root for on Sundays.

And yes, my boy would be a minuscule speck among a million high schoolers. But his absence would still matter because without him and other minuscule specks, the precious metals like Peyton Manning or Russell Wilson would never exist. They wouldn’t exist because the NFL requires a huge number of rocks to assemble the teams that eventually feed a pro league.

What if more and more like-minded parents start making the same decision as my wife and I have?

As stated above, it takes about 1.1 million high school kids to produce about 1,700 NFL players today. What would happen if 5 percent of parents decided next year to keep their boys from playing high school football? It would mean that the 1.1 million player pool would turn into a 1 million player pool. Hardly a big deal on the face of it, but as that 5 percent reduction radiates into the NFL, it reduces the number of pro players down from about 1,700 to 1,615, or 85 fewer players. That would be like removing an entire team and a significant portion of a second one from the NFL.

Look, Aaron Rogers isn’t a great quarterback because he can read defenses and throw a tight spiral — he’s great because he can read defenses and throw a tight spiral BETTER than anyone else. Aaron Rogers is great because his greatness was greater than the million-plus kids and young adults he surpassed. But he couldn’t surpass them if they weren’t on the lower fields of competition filling out the defenses that his passes would shred.

Not this year, but in the near future, the NFL will look down into that theoretical mine shaft and see a lot fewer rocks — rocks that will be filling up the soccer and lacrosse fields, basketball courts, rock climbing gyms, cross-fit studios and more.

Boxing today is a shell of its former glory because people don’t want to bash their heads in for a living. Could the NFL be headed for the same fate? I really think it might. I can see someday in the future, when my son invites me over to his house on a Sunday to hang out with the grandchildren and watch the big game. I feel pretty confident that big game won’t be NFL football.

The Real Lesson of American Sniper

Absorbing the two narratives about Chris Kyle in today’s media landscape is a little like alternatively staring with great interest at a small desert flower and a uniquely colored rock while perched on the very edge of the majestic Grand Canyon. Simply put, we are ridiculously paying attention to the wrong thing.

True, the political and cultural underpinnings of “American Sniper” are somewhat interesting. Also true is the importance of establishing whether Mr. Kyle’s murderer was “sane” at the time.

However, let us not ignore the canyon-sized truth in front of us that must be reckoned.

Chris Kyle was one of the most skilled firearms technician’s in human history. Chris Kyle, along with the other victim that day, was armed.  Both man shared texts that demonstratively show they were aware of the murderer’s mental imbalance. Yet, both men died, and the murderer fled.

When the angry and bombastic voices of the National Rifle Association shout for all to hear that the only way to “stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun,” how do they square their logic with what happened at that Texas gun range?

If ever there was a “good guy with a gun” who could defend himself and his companion, would it not have been the most successful sniper in US history, Chris Kyle? And yet, he could not and did not.

Why then would anyone think that you or I or anyone else could realistically defend ourselves from an evil person with a firearm?

No. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to stop the bad guy from having the gun in the first place.

 

I was born n 1966. I’ve lived in the SF Bay Area, Seattle, Denver, Tucson and now Eugene, Oregon.  I am happily married to the same women I said “I do” with 19 years ago.  I have two kids.  I’m middle class and I’m white.

This is my blog.

This blog has only three themes colored by a near 50 dude who’s seen a lot but has a lot more to see.

 

1.       Things are not as bad as we are often told.

2.       Go ahead and question the thing you’ve always just taken for granted as truth.  It might be wrong

3.       The old days weren’t necessarily the good old days.  Just maybe, the good days are still ahead.

 

To start, let me admit that the three themes above aren’t absolutes that must outweigh facts.

 

·         Yes, climate change is a bad thing that is getting worse.

·         Yes, terrorism is a bad thing that has even scarier potential.

·         Yes, the truth is that vaccines are necessary and parents should use them

·         Yes we landed on the moon, Oswald shot Kennedy and 9-11 was perpetrated by Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaeda.

·         Yes, the “greatest generation” did some truly great things.

·         Yes, the 1950’s looked really great to me too.

But….

 

·         However, there is much less pollution in our water, and in our wild areas

·         However, we are living in less violent times with less war than when I was a kid.

·         However, so much of our health system is driven by marketing and not science

·         However, the news media is all about entertainment and not information

·         However, baby boomers are a lot more racist, homophobic and mean than the younger generation

·         However, their Nirvana of the 1950’s was great if you were straight, white, capitalist conformist who never spoke out.