I’m a sports fan, but I don’t follow basketball. I did like your suggestion to banish all the “folderol” after a free throw. A free throw. A basket a player is supposed to make. Say I’m in court. A make an objection to a statement that’s clearly hearsay. The judge: “sustained.” Me: high fives my trial partner and maybe a coworker or two sitting in the gallery. Sheesh.
Completely agree with splitting up political statement tweets from those that are simply clever and funny.
Curse words have their place in language, particularly to create emphasis. That being said, I find casual use of curse words very unappealing, and sometimes indicative of laziness.
I used to be a real basketball fan in HS and am 1/2 Tarheel and will reread your reporting on that here later as the PS takes me a few days to digest. The Tweet Madness is a fun idea! I could've voted for both in many cases, and some just because they were related to current events and more PC--but went with the one that made me LOL! I'm rooting for the Bill Barr tweet..am so glad he's not on a screen every 3 minutes this week to distract us from important stuff. Thx Zorn
I thoroughly enjoyed all of today's offerings. It was an especially good crop of 'You gotta see these tweets'. As for changes to the the NCAA tournament, I'm completely on board with everything, except #8 (adding more teams), unless we don't have to pick until it gets to 64!
Speaking of objectionable school names, I went to John Hancock elementary school, and I was a bit embarrassed that it had the word ‘cock’ in it. I have a picture from my childhood of a pennant from the school where only the last 4 letters are visible. I still think of that.
I love your suggestions for changing basketball rules. I hate the jeopardy time-out. When we were kids this was considered smart basketball. Now it's just a cliche. Just stop it. Trapped in a corner? Take your lumps; no more bail outs. I also find it hard to watch the end of a basketball game. With all the time-outs and free throws my mind has wandered on to something else ... or I've simply wandered out of the room. Please, let's change this. Other suggestions for the last 60 seconds: an intentional foul behind the three-point line is three free throws, regardless of whether someone was shooting the ball. And, in the case of intentional fouls, the shooting team chooses who shoots the free throws. Also, I want to change the use of the possession arrow during the whole game. Tie-ups should go to the defense. In cases of ambiguous transition between offense and defense, use the possession arrow. As it stands now, the possession arrow punishes the team that plays aggressive defense and gives a pass to a lackadaisical team. The possession arrow pretends that both teams play with equal tenacity. Not true. One more item for my wish list: call traveling.
"BIPA seems like a futile last-gasp effort to block the inevitable spread of identification systems — familiar with gait biometrics? — that will one day render it difficult to impossible to leave the house without being recognized and tracked by the cameras. We will all be living in the equivalent of a small town in which everyone is up in everyone else’s business."
I have what's probably an unusual take on this, which is that we should do pretty much the opposite of what we do now. We should allow people to easily protect their privacy, online or otherwise, against intrusion by fellow citizens and commercial advertisers. At the same time, we should greatly expand camera surveillance by the government.
Whaaa? You heard me right! I'm not sure I can see a reason we should not have pretty much every square inch of public way in urban areas covered by a camera that can be used very selectively and restrictively, according to law, to virtually "chase" and apprehend perpetrators (who have just committed, say, a shooting), investigate crimes, and prosecute criminals. Under traditional 4th Amendment jurisprudence, we don't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when we're out in public anyway. We live with lots of cameras already, just not nearly enough of them to more-or-less guaranty that gang shooters would get caught.
Agree with your 10 basketball changes - lets do it! By the way if a player ran up and hugged an opposing player at the start of a game - expect an intentional foul - same scenario in the last minute - no intentional call - not right.
We’re just going to have to disagree on the profanity issue (as we do on many others), but I fear my side of this one is a lost cause, as illustrated by what just happened to me using iPhone dictation.
I started a text message to a friend, dictating, “It sure as hell should…”, which Apple ended up sending to her as “It sure as hell shit….” I’m not sure why their software somehow thought that was an idiom, but it’s not a good sign for my profanity abstinence campaign.
My problem with profanity is not so much that it's unseemly as that it's unimaginative. I'm not accusing you of this, Eric, but we all know people who apparently have the use of only one adjective--it's F"ing this and F'ing that. And if you only have one adjective and one or two expletives, you're not expressing yourself any more clearly or vividly than if you used a row of asterisks in their place. Let's see some creativity in emphatically expressing yourself!
1. Compared to baseball and, to a lesser extent, football it is not slow. This is not a major problem that needs solving.
2. I would not eliminate last minute time outs, but limiting each team to one during last minute seems ok to me.
3. Games seem to have a TV timeout at first break after every four minute mark. I'd consider switching the shot clock from 30 to 24 seconds at that first clock stoppage under the 4:00 minute mark at end of game.
4. I like fouling out rule. I think if player didn't actually foul out of a game we would see more violent play. I'd go the other way. I don't think technical fouls count against a player's personal foul limit. I think they should.
5. Please don't expand the tournement. I know I'm spitting against windmill here as there is a lot of money in those extra games. But team 69 (let alone team 65) has zero chance of becoming national champion. The point of the tournement SHOULD be to select teams with legit chance to show they are the best to compete for that honor. But that actual point of the tournement has become *let every team we can justify play more games to gin up the alumni and make more money."
And, of course, this future is coming to NCAA football. They will expand to 8, then 16, and perhaps 32 teams in my lifetime (I'm same age as EZ).
6. I hate those in game coach interviews. Hockey does it as well now. The coaches must hate it, but it is in some contract somewhere that they have to smile and go along. No coach is ever going to say anything actually incisive during an in-game interview. It just distracts (them) and annoys (me, at least).
Regarding swearing, I was more offended by a commenter's use of the P word (female genitalia) not so long ago than Zorn's BS comment. Yet, none here complained about that, except for the insult to the intended target (not female). It would be nice to keep a moderately civil tone here, and considering our host is quite the wordsmith he could find suitable substitutions that equally express emotion.
I’m a sports fan, but I don’t follow basketball. I did like your suggestion to banish all the “folderol” after a free throw. A free throw. A basket a player is supposed to make. Say I’m in court. A make an objection to a statement that’s clearly hearsay. The judge: “sustained.” Me: high fives my trial partner and maybe a coworker or two sitting in the gallery. Sheesh.
Random comments:
Completely agree with splitting up political statement tweets from those that are simply clever and funny.
Curse words have their place in language, particularly to create emphasis. That being said, I find casual use of curse words very unappealing, and sometimes indicative of laziness.
I used to be a real basketball fan in HS and am 1/2 Tarheel and will reread your reporting on that here later as the PS takes me a few days to digest. The Tweet Madness is a fun idea! I could've voted for both in many cases, and some just because they were related to current events and more PC--but went with the one that made me LOL! I'm rooting for the Bill Barr tweet..am so glad he's not on a screen every 3 minutes this week to distract us from important stuff. Thx Zorn
I thoroughly enjoyed all of today's offerings. It was an especially good crop of 'You gotta see these tweets'. As for changes to the the NCAA tournament, I'm completely on board with everything, except #8 (adding more teams), unless we don't have to pick until it gets to 64!
Speaking of objectionable school names, I went to John Hancock elementary school, and I was a bit embarrassed that it had the word ‘cock’ in it. I have a picture from my childhood of a pennant from the school where only the last 4 letters are visible. I still think of that.
Cereals was the only tweet that I really laughed at this week. I was a little surprised, as it may be on the edge of still being acceptable.
I love your suggestions for changing basketball rules. I hate the jeopardy time-out. When we were kids this was considered smart basketball. Now it's just a cliche. Just stop it. Trapped in a corner? Take your lumps; no more bail outs. I also find it hard to watch the end of a basketball game. With all the time-outs and free throws my mind has wandered on to something else ... or I've simply wandered out of the room. Please, let's change this. Other suggestions for the last 60 seconds: an intentional foul behind the three-point line is three free throws, regardless of whether someone was shooting the ball. And, in the case of intentional fouls, the shooting team chooses who shoots the free throws. Also, I want to change the use of the possession arrow during the whole game. Tie-ups should go to the defense. In cases of ambiguous transition between offense and defense, use the possession arrow. As it stands now, the possession arrow punishes the team that plays aggressive defense and gives a pass to a lackadaisical team. The possession arrow pretends that both teams play with equal tenacity. Not true. One more item for my wish list: call traveling.
"BIPA seems like a futile last-gasp effort to block the inevitable spread of identification systems — familiar with gait biometrics? — that will one day render it difficult to impossible to leave the house without being recognized and tracked by the cameras. We will all be living in the equivalent of a small town in which everyone is up in everyone else’s business."
I have what's probably an unusual take on this, which is that we should do pretty much the opposite of what we do now. We should allow people to easily protect their privacy, online or otherwise, against intrusion by fellow citizens and commercial advertisers. At the same time, we should greatly expand camera surveillance by the government.
Whaaa? You heard me right! I'm not sure I can see a reason we should not have pretty much every square inch of public way in urban areas covered by a camera that can be used very selectively and restrictively, according to law, to virtually "chase" and apprehend perpetrators (who have just committed, say, a shooting), investigate crimes, and prosecute criminals. Under traditional 4th Amendment jurisprudence, we don't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" when we're out in public anyway. We live with lots of cameras already, just not nearly enough of them to more-or-less guaranty that gang shooters would get caught.
Agree with your 10 basketball changes - lets do it! By the way if a player ran up and hugged an opposing player at the start of a game - expect an intentional foul - same scenario in the last minute - no intentional call - not right.
We’re just going to have to disagree on the profanity issue (as we do on many others), but I fear my side of this one is a lost cause, as illustrated by what just happened to me using iPhone dictation.
I started a text message to a friend, dictating, “It sure as hell should…”, which Apple ended up sending to her as “It sure as hell shit….” I’m not sure why their software somehow thought that was an idiom, but it’s not a good sign for my profanity abstinence campaign.
My problem with profanity is not so much that it's unseemly as that it's unimaginative. I'm not accusing you of this, Eric, but we all know people who apparently have the use of only one adjective--it's F"ing this and F'ing that. And if you only have one adjective and one or two expletives, you're not expressing yourself any more clearly or vividly than if you used a row of asterisks in their place. Let's see some creativity in emphatically expressing yourself!
My thoughts on speeding up basketball:
1. Compared to baseball and, to a lesser extent, football it is not slow. This is not a major problem that needs solving.
2. I would not eliminate last minute time outs, but limiting each team to one during last minute seems ok to me.
3. Games seem to have a TV timeout at first break after every four minute mark. I'd consider switching the shot clock from 30 to 24 seconds at that first clock stoppage under the 4:00 minute mark at end of game.
4. I like fouling out rule. I think if player didn't actually foul out of a game we would see more violent play. I'd go the other way. I don't think technical fouls count against a player's personal foul limit. I think they should.
5. Please don't expand the tournement. I know I'm spitting against windmill here as there is a lot of money in those extra games. But team 69 (let alone team 65) has zero chance of becoming national champion. The point of the tournement SHOULD be to select teams with legit chance to show they are the best to compete for that honor. But that actual point of the tournement has become *let every team we can justify play more games to gin up the alumni and make more money."
And, of course, this future is coming to NCAA football. They will expand to 8, then 16, and perhaps 32 teams in my lifetime (I'm same age as EZ).
6. I hate those in game coach interviews. Hockey does it as well now. The coaches must hate it, but it is in some contract somewhere that they have to smile and go along. No coach is ever going to say anything actually incisive during an in-game interview. It just distracts (them) and annoys (me, at least).
I liked this week's visual tweets. The one about the onions made me laugh out loud.
Regarding swearing, I was more offended by a commenter's use of the P word (female genitalia) not so long ago than Zorn's BS comment. Yet, none here complained about that, except for the insult to the intended target (not female). It would be nice to keep a moderately civil tone here, and considering our host is quite the wordsmith he could find suitable substitutions that equally express emotion.
I very much enjoyed your "visual tweets."
It is not my intent to increase your workload,
but when you do see something that strikes your fancy,
I would appreciate it if you would pass them along.
On another topic, I only get gasoline at COSCO, where speed is the chief concern.
I might say, "good morning, afternoon, or evening," but that's about it.
After watching the Brown Senate hearing, I’m now watching PBS’ Nova show about slime molds. Seems related, but more civilized.