Presidential Priorities, Super Bowl Edition

Amy
.
It’s a losing battle, believe me. If it’s not fantasy football, it’s power tools. If it’s not power tools it’s a garage band.
.
Time for bed. Seriously.

Wow. That post contained relevant content. No, wait, no it didn’t. But that’s ok because it was redeemed by being funny or otherwise entertaining. No, wait, nope on that one too. Ok, I got it, it has relevance to lots of important meta-type issues. Or not. Fail.

Women are never happy with men as they are, they always try to change them!

While I, being a full blooded male do not understand the facination with fantasy sports, for many it is just another way to keep score, to bet a little using something other than just dumb luck. It’s like playing the stock market except without the inside traders and the manipulation of stock values. You do well because you just pick the right player to succeed on any given Sunday, or for baseball on any given night. There is research, statistics and of course the opportunity to keep score.

Amy, stop trying to change us and just let us be men. If the fantasy sporting provides a sense of bonding among the administration personnel and gives them an outlet for stress then let them just be boys. It’s a lot healthier activity than choosing to get a BJ from an intern.

When he starts buying Intrade futures on his own 2012 defeat. I’ll begin worrying. Untl then, let Obama be Obama!

Teehee.
.
But Amy, it’s not fantasy sports that are ruining the real games for the rest of us, it’s your husband who’s ruining the real games for you.
.
Fantasy sports won’t be a problem for the “rest of us” until and unless teams start making decisions about who’s on the team and who to play based on their fantasy team potential. Don’t think that’s happened yet.
.
And happily it’s not “still a few weeks” from spring training. Feb 6 is Truck Day for the Red Sox, when they transport equipment from Boston to Tampa Bay, to much fanfare and a send-off ceremony. Pitchers and Catchers report Feb 12, nine short days away.
.
Totally irrelevant ictures from last year’s Truck Day:
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/gallery/02_09_08_truck_day?pg=8

what was that line in the inaugural address about “time to put away childish things?”

pluk – sports are a ritualized way to deal with the war impulse. Not sure they’re childish things and in any case play is not always childish.

kathy–
fantasy football isn’t a sport, its Dungeons and Dragons for Joe Six Pack.

This from someone who says that people who spend a lot of their time kneeling in front of a painted stick, while eating special crackers in the expectation of gaining immortality thereby deserve a greater role in public life.
.
Talk about fantasy…..
.
I mean it doesn’t really matter how people waste their time, But to get all self-righteous over one particular time-waster when you’re an advocate for a really big time waster, that has a history of doing actual damage, is really kinda hard to take.

Tough crowd – tough crowd…..
.
You can tell it’s Monday morning.
.
Now we know the source of pourmecoffee’s handle if not his sense of humor…..

His? Her?

Amy, give us a little fun. Just remember if men really ruled the world we’d all still be living in caves. We don’t! We are ruled by our women who expect some sense of decorum, a nice home with appropriate furnishings, and a cetain level of attention paid to them. If something interferes with our woman’s expectations that is when we have trouble. Sports are one of those things that interferes with the attention issue. Problem is, we are simple creatures who find fun in making body noises, getting a little wasted with our buddies, ogling beautiful women, watching manly sports (no figure skating please), taking a mid day nap and we really hate to shop.
Most of us are harmless creatures just trying to cope with all of life’s challenges. Be kind to us and let us have our playtoys.

That was quick, jay won the thread: “This from someone who says that people who spend a lot of their time kneeling in front of a painted stick, while eating special crackers in the expectation of gaining immortality thereby deserve a greater role in public life.”
.
jay, you might have added something about talking to their invisible friend. That always gets a rise.
.

Amy, did you realize you would be associating with so many atheists! The painted sticks, special crackers and the invisable friend comments are a tad rough even for Monday morning.

While I’m not terribly religious, I do hope there is some sort of God out there, even if it is only some huge guy running our petri dish experiment. Without that belief in God or Jesus people would be running around stealing from each other, killing each other, conquering each other, manipulatng stocks, firng people just to improve profits, and having sex with who people other than their spouse or lover. We’d have ministers having sex with their parishioners, priests having sex with young boys, nuns breaking their vows of celibacy and some ministers would even admit to homosexual acts. Oh that’s already happening… Never Mind.

Ah, newfloridian, but there are men totting up statistics in meaningless contests, focusing not on the actual results of those meaningless contests, but on those of a simulated version of these meaningless contests. Now THAT’S a problem.
.
The painted stick reference comes from Neal Stephenson’s monumental Anathem, which I just finished. The novel involves a cloistered community of materialists who have minimal contact with the secular (yes, that’s what he calls it) world, with subsets of the cloistered having contact once a year, once a decade, once a century and once a millennium. There’s a survey questionnaire that asks about contemporary religious practice, which refers to the painted stick as one of a variety of possible practices.
.
The “crackers” reference, of course, comes from the immortal “Do the Handicapped go to Hell?” South Park episode, which (along with its second half “Probably”) explores a doctrinal crisis facing the kids. Because Timmy can’t complete the rituals, he is apparently damned. It also explores the complexities of Satan’s love life.

jayack – I really didn’t think Amy was getting self-righteous about fantasy football. I think she’s trying (probably in vain) to join with us, have a little joshing fun, as in “stop the fantasy madness before it’s too late.”
.
Since KT, at least, is also a Christian, why is it only Amy who gets the “how can I believe you because you’re a Christian” thing, when she’s writing about football?

If you folks keep trying to smash Amy over the head with a sledgehammer for every little innocuous post, if she ever really goes off the rails you will be the little boys who cried wolf. C’mon, now. Lighten up.

Because KT isn’t a professional scold.
.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

.
See, with me it’s shopping. Women shopping. I can not get behind all that shopping they do. It’s an expensive addiction and it ruins it for the rest of us. The hobby also has a way of taking over a person’s life. Plus, it makes the stores too crowded and the lines too long and takes away from quality family time better spent doing the laundry and hosing down the driveway. Women spend an inordinate amount of time shopping, preparing to shop, recapping their shopping experience, plotting their next foray into those jungles of racks and little rooms and shelves and bags and boxes. Nightmarish! (shudder) Stop the shopping madness before it’s too late!
.

But as Michelle Obama no doubt knows, the hobby also has a way of taking over a person’s life….
.
Unlike blog commenting…

I haven’t noticed AS praying aloud here, or being a scold for Christ or otherwise knocking on our doors and trying to tell us about Jesus. So why not wait until she does before you guys attack.
.
There’s a strong strain of anti-Amyism in these threads based, I’m told, on her past writings, and her belief in God. That sounds more like bigotry to me than reasoned thought.

[...] there are still people out there who are actually bothered by the existence of fantasy sports? I’ll bet she’s also never been able to get into the newfangled rock and roll all the [...]

First let me note that I was indeed taking this thread in the light tone it was intended, BUT – an author’s past work is, was and remains fair game when evaluating a current post.
.
Joe Klein, for instance often says things which seem quite reasonable but that can’t alter or erase his utter failure to consider, let alone understand the issues that underlie the NSA’s violation of FISA and the President’s assertion of unconstitutional authority that remains the cenrtral issue around that debate.
.
His willingness to violate principles in order to acheive desirable results is part of his thinking even when I happen to be in agreement with the desired results.
.
If Jayack wishes to pounce on an otherwise innocuous Amy Sullivan post, I’ll be happy to defend his right to do so…

Amy – “Longstanding beef” sounds dirty. I like it.

.
davemc,
.
There’s a strong strain of anti-Amyism in these threads based, I’m told, on her past writings, and her belief in God.
.
It isn’t “her belief in God” at all, it is the scolding, lecturing tone she takes and the fingerwagging public Democrat-bashing that she does in her published works. You will probably notice the same antipathy towards other purportedly “liberal” contrarian journos as well. Michael Kinsley was hammered when he posted here, for example. When Joe was the resident “liberal” contrarian gratuitous Democrat-basher, he was hammered as well.
.

Journalistic Priorities, Domestic Dissatisfaction Edition.

If it were World of Warcraft, then I’d really be worried.

If he spends less time on sports, he can spend more time marveling at how good his wife looks.

The only thing I took out of this post is that being stuck at a dinner party with Amy Sullivan might not be so bad if she brought her husband along.

@plukasiak
.
fantasy football isn’t a sport, its Dungeons and Dragons for Joe Six Pack.
.
So not true; it’s D&D with stats. All the fantasy sports fans I know have advanced degrees, most in quantitative fields. (But then, I work at a university so also describes the NASCAR fans.)
.
And as for the value of play, I just spent a week in January at the National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. Well worth a visit, even virtually, to consider the importance of play for sentient beings. It is a wonderful thing when two life partners enjoy the same pasttimes, but all to often there’s only a little overlap. I echo the opinions that her dear husband could do much, much worse.

I’m sure the finger-wagging thing is the real reason you guys rag on AS, James, LA, though I’ve yet to see her really wag her finger or scold Democrats here.
.
Which explains the ‘invisible friend’ comments, the demands she rectify scriptural inconsistencies and the sequence of ‘atheists rule; Christians drool’ discussions that usually follow an AS post.
.
Yep, you’ve convinced me.

joyomama is absolutely right. Play is how we not only relax but how we learn to deal with others.

I don’t have much time to waste, right now, in responding. I’ll write more later.
.
Kathy– My problem is as much with Amy’s beat as with anything else. There is no beat for efforts made to inculcate reality into the evangelical world. But there IS a beat for browbeating non-believers into “tolerance.” I don’t care how KT decides to waste her time, as long as she doesn’t tell me how not to waste mine.
.
James, LA
.
Yes, that was a remarkably sexist post, wasn’t it?

davemc: Its all about context. If KT wanted to write a light-hearted post about how her husband gets sucked into fantasy sports, of course it would be no big deal.
.
The problem is with AS is that she not only makes such a post on Swampland, she also links to a longer screed that she wrote at Washington Monthly, and tops it off with the absurd declaration that “Fantasy sports are ruining the real games for the rest of us.”
.
Really? Fantasy sports are ruining “real games” for Amy Sullivan? Not her dinner conversation. Not her relationship with her husband. “Real games” are being ruined.
.
I don’t want to belabor the point and over-analyze a single blog post. But AS has a history of not only disagreeing with people or expressing a personal opinion, but belittling the views of others and acting like her position is objectively correct…all while demanding that those who see things differently show sufficient respect for her views and her feelings.
.

.
davemc,
.
suit yourself, but before you got here, before she became an official blogger, Amy used to have the editor post some pretty finger-wagging posts here. Perhaps you missed that era. When we challenged her to come out into public we were met with complete silence and she was free to post any kind of inaccurate mischaracterization that she pleased without explanation. It wasn’t the optimal way to start blogging. So yeah, there is some residual resentment about that. Throwing bombs into the middle of a political blog and hiding from the fallout isn’t a great way to endear oneself.
.
I can’t speak for others about the “invisible friend” stuff. But c’mon: the Democrat’s “God Gap”? We should be more like Ralph Reid and Jerry Falwell and try to attract their followers by keeping quiet about teh gay? It is AS who has made an issue about religion and has made public bludgeoning of Democrats about religion her schtick. So she is bound to get bashed back.
.

So not true; it’s D&D with stats. All the fantasy sports fans I know have advanced degrees,
_
you’re lack of familiarity with joe-six packs types is irrelevant to the discussion.
_
but, it it makes you feel better, how’s this:
“Fantasy football is just Dungeons and Dragons for Joe Six-Pack and Joe Six-Pack wannabe.”

Lack of familiarity? au contraire. My father was a Joe Six-Pack printer who spent his summers tracking baseball stats in a special notebook. Your comment gives a class inflection to a phenomenon that is more likely gendered. See also: scrapbookers and knitters with PhDs.

Paul Dirks: Unlike blog commenting…
-
Touche!

” ..I have a longstanding beef with fantasy sports, .. “

YEA!
I have along standing beef with soap operas ..
I know college kids who wouldn’t take a class whose time conflicts with their favorite soaps! It is destroying the moral (puritan) fiber of the nation!

” .. Stop the .. madness before it’s too late. “
My sentiment – exactly.

And I knew a gal who wouldn’t go out unless she had her favorite high heels on. In the restaurant, she would run to the bathroom to check herself in the mirror – for the umpteenth time.

Such preoccupation is destroying the moral (puritan) fiber of the nation!

I mean, if nature (also known to Amy as ‘God’) wanted people to walk on their toes like cows ….

Or if nature (aka ‘God’) wanted people to always see how they look behind and front like a chameleon …

Nature (aka “God”) would have found a way, right?

” .. Stop the .. madness before it’s too late. “
My sentiment – exactly. And do it before nature (aka “God”) finds a way!

james, paul, and jay –
.
Not having read any of Amy Sullivan’s other works I’ll have to take your word for it.
.
This post doesn’t seem particularly scolding to me, at least in comparison to the general tenor of blog posts which are usually, after all, about the blogger’s beef with somebody or something.

.
Also, davemc,
.
I’d like to expound just a bit. You are an ex-journo or editor, so okay I get you are not a partisan Dem, You may not understand how resentful us normal Democrats are of beltway “Dems” who purport to speak for all Democrats. That’s one reason that so many people resented Cox as well. She would be invited on the talk shows and conferences to represent the “liberal side.” Cox, bless her snarky little heart, at the time ran a gossip blog that was obsessed with anal sex, okay, and presumed to represent the liberal blogosphere on television and in formal conferences. And it was a way of marginalizing our side. Because they could have been inviting Scott Horton or Glenn Greenwald or Juan Cole or someone serious, with cogent ideas about politics or the subject at hand.
.
So Amy and Cox and Klein, and a lot of other beltway people go on television supposedly representing the Dem side, but they are actually spouting beltway conventional thinking and which has absolutely nothing to do with how actual, real life Democrats think. I’m just explaining the history here, okay? Add to that the constant gratuitous Democrat-bashing, which is de rigeur for the beltway in-crowd, and that’s where that resentment comes from. Joe Klein, to his credit, finally understood that, and his blogging has vastly improved since then.
.

We should be more like Ralph Reid and Jerry Falwell and try to attract their followers by keeping quiet about teh gay?
.
That presupposes that ALL Christians have the constipated religious beliefs and doctrinaire acts of Reid and Falwell, et al. Or act in ways 180 degrees from the Jesus of the New Testament. I’m not even sure that sums up AS’s statements of faith, though I’m far from an expert.
.
In honesty, I don’t care what AS believes. Or anyone else. That’s between the person and his/her God, or lack thereof. You either believe that God IS – or you don’t. But I have known too many believers, Christians or otherwise, who practice the Great Commandment Jesus spoke of: “Love God and love ye one another,” toc consign them Godly Hell.
.
Do you really believe that all Christians or all those who have belief in a higher power, whatever the name subscribe to the narrow-minded bigotry of the rigid and the unloving? For that is the way many of you discuss faith and belief. And it comes across too often as bigoted as anything Reid or Falwell say.

kathy,
I thought the post was funny, and I posted a rejoinder. The “scolding” part was an attempted explanation to davemc’s concerns, to be clear.

In honesty, I don’t care what AS believes. Or anyone else.
.
Precisely. Nor do I. That’s the whole point.
.
I don’t talk about my religious beliefs and thoughts about religion on a public politics blog, so I’ll pass on your other questions, with all due respect.
.

My fantasy league has talking dogs, Darth Vader, and Catholic schoolgirls. What’s not to like?

James, I appreciate the expanded thought. I have two further thoughts.
.
1. I’ve never thought the journalists appearing on TV or radio to discuss their take on politics represented anything but themselves and their careers. Or, if I’m charitable, their news organizations. TV shows are all about entertainment and creating a narrative that woefully oversimplifies the national perspective, i.e., we are not Red or Blue, we’re Purple in varying shades.
.
The pontificating and posturing that goes on amongst journalists on TV is one of the many things journalism has done to degrade its effect. We were all a lot better off when no one cared what a journalist thought.
.
2. The Democrats won – and won big. So, relax. Enjoy this time of ascendancy for the values and programs you like. Soon enough, the pendulum will shift again. Quite honestly, I don’t believe anything Joe Klein or Amy Sullivan said on TV made anyone say, “Boy, those Democrats or (a.) stupid or (b.) brilliant. People already think those things.

PS: I’ve voted Democrat since my first presidential vote for Eugene McCarthy. Being a reporter meant I couldn’t put it in my reporting.

I don’t talk about my religious beliefs and thoughts about religion on a public politics blog, so I’ll pass on your other questions, with all due respect.
.

Fair enough, James.

davemc,
.
I appreciate the discussion. I agree that we were all better off when no one cared what a journo thought. But any more, I’m afraid, that cable teevee “news” format, which plays an oversized role in shaping political opinion in the beltway, of pairing up two conservatives with two journalists has had two unfortunate results:
.
1)journos now commonly spout their opinions on current issues just like a pundit does, obliterating the line between straight journos and punditry. And have you seen anything quite so preposterous as Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson arguing economic theory, along with George Will, with Paul Krugman?
.
2) Amplifies and legitimizes the conservative side while marginalizing the liberal side, by giving legimacy to conservative pundits by pairing them with respected straight journos.
.
Sure, we won, you say, but the particular situation above bodes ill for the future. Not only for Dems but for journalism. So no one I know of is going to relax.
.
And I think you underestimate the damage that the gratuitous Democrat-bashing does. It is truly, truly toxic, and it carries not only through the beltway but throughout the country. and that particular toxicity is carried by the likes of Amy Sullivan and Michael Kinsley, okay? When the Conservatives bash us, it’s obviously partisan. But when people purportedly on our side do it, it’s poison. It’s a very specific corollary of High Broderism. I dunno, maybe AS has learned something by blogging here and listening to people who reside outside her tiny, narrow little DC beltway world. We’ll see.
.

Umm . . . I’m thinking this post was an incredibly unsuccessful attempt at humor by “Bible Girl.” I don’t see why we can’t cut her a little slack on this one occasion.

Kathy, did you read the linked article?
.
It is one long scolding screed that concludes with a ridiculous claim that players and managers are influenced by fantasy baseball players. Also, it is impossible to ignore a writer whose beat is the politics of religion when she spends so many pixels deriding people who engage in a time-consuming obsession about something that isn’t real.

As the only person awake when Amy posted this, I went to bed confident that it would generate nada. 50+ comments later, I guess I was wrong. Personally, this is my fav: “This from someone who says that people who spend a lot of their time kneeling in front of a painted stick, while eating special crackers in the expectation of gaining immortality thereby deserve a greater role in public life,” but the thoughtful discussion over who speaks for Joe Six Pack is a close 2nd.
~
Meanwhile, in all honesty, has this pucker even responded to commentary?

Jay – guilty. I didn’t read the linked article. My version of “don’t have enough time for this,” but I recognize it can mean I miss something pretty relevant. peace.

joyomama-
Thanks for the link to the museum of play. About 15 years ago I did a paper on play for a psych course and was surprised by the paucity of scholarly writing or research into the developmental importance of play, or its value to adults. I guess this museum doesn’t address this either, but I’m glad it does what it does.

James, LA…sorry to drop out of the conversation, but had a small plumbing issue to deal with. A 75-year-old house with plumbing to match is a constant thing. I bring great amusement to the guys at the plumbing shop.
.
That said, I’m not convinced cable TV programs truly have that much impact – I know, I know, they supposedly create the CW, etc. But Hardball, O’Reilly, Hannity and Blitzer have a collective audience of about 400,000, according to Nielsen.
.
I don’t know a soul who has made a political decision based on what they, Kristol or the entire Times editorial board have ever written. The pundits rarely discuss the issues of political life for real folks: jobs, kids, schools and getting through life.
.
You’re absolutely right that journalists have obliterated the lines between news, punditry and opinion.
.
The old rule was that journalists don’t have the luxury of the certitude you and others here have about Dems and Republicans. They have to pretend both sides bring something to the conversation. And frankly, the whole liberal/conservative things gets a little fuzzy. I mean everyone is more liberal or more conservative than someone else. Who gets to decide?\
.
But the new rules are that we have to be informed/entertained every freaking second of the day and we don’t really want to hear what we don’t want to hear. Which would make it difficult for journalists, except they’re all waiting to get on Hardball anyway.

Kathy –
.
Actually, it’s a surprisingly serious place, in the academic sense. They host/publish the Journal of Play. And is it OK to admit that one of the reasons I visit Swampland is to play?

Kathy–
.
I hadn’t read it either when I put up the original comment.
.
I’ll put up a post elsewhere, at greater length, on these issues.

davemc,
.
sorry bout your plumbing issues. been there myself. pipes so old they strip out when you *look* at them with a pipe wrench?. Repiping. that’s the only solution.
.
I disagree with your assessment of the impact of cable news. Here’s how:
.
First, DC newrooms have cable news on all day long, either CNN or Fox. Assignment editors often base their assignments during the day based on what CNN is talking about. So that serves to amplify their topics. For example, Scarborough’s early morning show has a big influence on political story assignments.
.
Secondly, what is being talked about on these networks is what the political class is talking about. It serves as an echo chamber and it’s what the political class is interested in. So those are the topics that are covered in political news coverage, those are the questions that are asked at briefings, those are the topics that are brought into the network news coverage.
.
As I am sure you are aware (and I will provide links if you request them. Most of my information is from Pew’s PEJ ) data shows that the vast majority of people get their news from television. So you have the situation where what you (and KT) regard as little-watched programs have an outsized influence on the public discourse. You can actually watch this kind of toxic influence unfold. Someone says something outrageous on Scarborough. It gets talked about on CNN throughout the day. It comes up at the daily briefing, It is broadcast throughout the day on CNN and then on network news. It is picked up by news radio, because they are at the briefing. Print journos scramble to get a piece out of it, because their assignment editor demands it. Since local news is affiliated with the major networks, it makes it to the local evening news. And that’s where it sinks into the public consciousness, news radio at drive time, and local news.
.
And then oops! turns out it isn’t true! No one but print is obligated to issue a correction or retraction. THAT’S how it’s done.
.
Now television has the worst “journalism” of any venue. They virtually never correct their mistakes. They virtually never retract a story. Worse, it is impossible to contact them to point out the stuff they got wrong. They are completely insulated from ordinary feedback.
.
I’m happy for you to show me where I am wrong, but I’m pretty sure I can show you some hard data to back up what I say.
.
Cheers!

This is how James Fallows, in Breaking the News defines the daily news cycle. The weekly cycle is driven by the magazine pub dates at the end of the week, followed by the Sunday news shows. Fallows describes how responding to the “issue” of the day consumed the Clinton communications team, and how the week’s “issues” controlled the short term narrative that fired up on Monday.
.
These cycles take place irrespective of the actual news value of anything (not entirely extraordinary) going on.
.
One of the features of the Obama campaign is that it largely ignored the daily news cycle. Harder to do that within the bubble, but it would be an accomplishment.

jayack’s right. the scenario I described is just one of the ways toxic news is transmitted. The AP/wire route is another way. The Drudge/Politico route another, particularly noxious route. The sunday news show/sunday opinion column is another. I was just responding to davemc’s contention that these “little-watched” shows don’t have much impact on the national discourse and on public opinion. I strongly disagree. It’s a common belief, I think, on the supply side of the equation, i.e., the journos/new producers, who think it is harmless gossip and entertainment for them. But look at it from the receiving side, and the story is much different. It DOES have a big impact, and none of it good.
.