Funny result of omitted word(s) in Mike Wise’s column on Kidd finally winning a title:
Confession: I had a built-in bias in the Finals. No, it wasn’t because Nowitzki is from my mother’s home town of Wurzburg, Germany, (Pop. 133,000) — the Bavarian postcard my parents met and were married in while my father was a serviceman.
The town is a postcard. Parents met the postcard. Parents wed in the postcard.
Because Redskins offseason dysfunction is newsworthy like an OJ Simpson quote on a nubile blonde abductee eaten by a Muslim’s pet alligator, it’s no wonder the story that McNabb’s refusal to don a playbook wristband lead to his benching has generated wall-to-wall blogosphere coverage.
Among the tons of chatter is this nugget at Shutdown Corner:
I sort of feel sorry for McNabb this week. He’s been called out by a boxer for not being black enough and now he’s the subject of a story with heavy racial undertones that insinuates he’s not intelligent enough. It’s a no-win situation.
Heavy racial undertones? Seriously?
So because McNabb is black and because the historical paucity of black QBs is most often attributed to the still promulgated (though curiously undocumented) belief that blacks, supposedly due to lower IQs, can’t learn a playbook or lead a team this story has heavy racial undertones?
In the same story Chris Chase contrasts McNabb’s refusal to shed vanity to the detriment of his performance to President Obama’s well-documented reliance on telepromters:
There’s a point when vanity has to be sacrificed for the sake of performance…Carrying around a teleprompter like a security blanket doesn’t enhance Barack Obama’s image, but it’s much better than stumbling over words in a policy speech.
HEAVY RACIAL UNDERTONES ALERT! Obama is black and the stereotype that blacks use poor english when speaking is alive and well, ipso facto Chase’s remark has racial undertones. Gotcha, you racist scum!
I propose a cousin to the golden rule; abjuring racially inspired color choices and alluding to the predominate hue of most athletic fields this rule will be henceforth known as the green rule. The green rule states that reporters should treat sporting news for a black player as they would treat the same news for a white player (and vice-versa).
In practice: If a white Redskins QB refused to wear a playbook wristband and was subsequently benched, would it be news? Yes. Would commentary on the news imply that the story had racial undertones? No.
President Obama’s awesome, in part self-congratualatory, announcement of bin Laden’s death has the unfounded ‘I he says; himself he loves’ meme flowing from the pens of conservative political pundits once again.
The fellows at the Language Log have debunked more first-person President claims than the Mythbusters have busted hourly chunks of my life, so when I read Victor Davis Hanson’s slapdash first-person pronoun count and accompanying amateur psychoanalysis I immediately headed their URL.
Sure enough they’d tackled a new occurrence, more accurately they’d highlighted another’s take down:
Using a modified Fox technique, meaning you ignore pronouns like “me” and “mine” but count assorted “I”-contractions, Obama’s late-night speech on Sunday was about 0.7% “I”: eight “I” and two “I’ve” in 1,388 words. He’s a little under Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech (May 1, 2003), which was right at 1%, though Bush was down around 0.5% for the beginning of the Afghan war (Oct. 7, 2001).
That’s exctly the data driven analysis I was looking for. Thanks for that really well argued blo…oh fuck:
At this stage, it’s pretty fair to conclude that huffing about Obama’s allegedinfatuation with first-person pronouns is the modern right-wing commentariat’s way of saying “Boy, you lookin’ at something?”
Wait, why is that fair? More importantly, what evidence is that conclusion based on?
If the focus of Headsup: The Blog‘s post was merely to demonstrate that Obama’s first-person pronoun use is below the political speech’s average, the aside would be far less objectionable. But a large portion of the post, and the Language Log post to follow, is spent explaining why first-person pronoun use itself, in the absence of data proving otherwise, is indactive of nothing, certainly not narcissism.
Wouldn’t it follow that unfounded claims of narcissism are not themselves, in the absence of data proving otherwise, indicative of anything, certainly not racism?
I would think so. Of course, I’m not generally guided to post by deeply held political beliefs, so rare is the post where I make unfounded political accusations while debunking another’s unfounded political accusations.
As they say: Pot, meet sandwich bag with the rest of the pot.
AN INTERESTING STUDY could be made of first person use in political speeches. I think, from Headsup’s example, Reagan’s high first-person pronoun use in his Iran-contra mea cupla provokes rather than pacifies the idea that underuse/use/overuse (if, that is, use if has an average baseline from which we can point to a deviation as being inordinately under/over) means something.
My first assumption is that while a speechwriter may take extra effort to claim success, they may also do so for blatant failure, believing the electorate to be more quick to put the issue behind them. How much extra time did we spend analyzing Bush’s mistakes after he, when asked, failed to account for any on his own? Had he just said, “Hmmm…I fucked that, that, that and that up. My bad.” would less time (as a result of that specific question and answer) have been devoted to chronicling what was omitted? Maybe.
Not being a scientist I can’t comment on the required methodology for such a study but I imagine it would include plenty of double-back-super-secret-randomize-blinding.
Beyond determining which pronouns to count and counting them, a study group would have to say whether the speech was concerning a subject that the electorate had negative/neutral/positive view of (i.e. Obama announcing death of bin Laden=positive, Regean Iran Contra =negative).
Rinse and repeat the study to account for possible bias.
Then analyze the % of first-person pronoun use in each type of speech.
Maybe a pattern develops.
The clincher would be if the study demonstrated that its results could predict future first-person pronoun use in a political speech.
If a white coat wearing, clipboard holding scientist reads this: You can take it and run. Free of charge.
Sports Journalism for/by Dummies
One guy hears one thing. (“I’m hearing the Redskins are the front-runner for [Vince Young’s] services”)
Said thing is repeated…and repeated…and repeated as reportable info.
And since it’s tough to tell the echos from the originating voice it sounds as though more than one source is making the claim. Just like that a rumor becomes rumors.
Take it away Pro Football Weekly:
The growing rumors of Titans QB Vince Young to the Redskins are coursing their way through the NFL, but one Redskins source claims he hasn’t heard that being touted as head coach Mike Shanahan’s master plan. “News to me,” the source said, neither ruling out adding Young nor giving it much credence.
10 points to Pro Football Weekly for attempting to verify a rumor; 22 for reporting on their inability to do so.
-12 points for calling the singular rumor the plural rumors.
And a whopping -57 points for their stop-the-presses headline:
That whisper hitting Omar Kelly’s inner ear? That my friends was a lock.
The International Business Times has a gallery of death cultists protesting the killing of Osama bin Laden. (h/t Michael Totten guest blogging at Instapundit). This image, rather the two naked men on the sign in the background, caught my eye:
So many ways to interpret the symbolism. What would Ann Althouse say?
Do they represent the men as they see themselves? As they see Islam? Does the sign represent their repressed sexuality? Their repressed homosexuality?
What do you think? My answer: al Qaeda, more like al Gayda.
Remember one post ago when Omar Kelly said this totally unsubstantiated thing:
I’m hearing the Redskins are the front-runner for [Vince Young’s] services.
Well you were witness to reportable info. Spread the word on sports blogs nationwide:
The Washington Redskins are reportedly the “front-runners” to land Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young this offseason.
While championing Young as a prospect for the Miami Dolphins, Omar Kelly of the Sun-Sentinel revealed that the quarterback needy Redskins are the one’s pressing hardest for the former Heisman Trophy winner.
Yes. One dude said that he heard and therefore the Redskins are. Notice we are no longer just “front-runners,” we’re “pressing hardest”. Who are we pressing? No one, of course. They just made that up to fill space.
Omar Kelly of the Sun-Sentinel claims the Skins may want Vince Young. He also says about the Dolphins QB sitch:
I’ve consistently said (since January that) Denver’s Kyle Orton would be my first choice for the Dolphins, but the price the Broncos will be asking has me concerned. John Elway doesn’t seem too excited about Tim Tebow, or is he just trying to drive up Orton’s price.
I’ve been told Kevin Kolb would be the option that fits the best, but I’ve done the film work on Kolb and it’s a bit concerning. He checks down plenty, and doesn’t have a big enough body of work. So the max I’d give up for Kolb is a second-round pick.
Before I point out what I wrote this post to point out, let me ask you if digital editors are much lower on the org chart at newspapers or if everyone just writes digital articles/posts from their iPhones? The first paragraph appears to have two obvious typos, which, sure, they’re just typos, but for God’s sake it’s an actual newspaper (albeit a blog on a newspaper; some slop is to be expected) where someone is getting paid expressly to heal the wounds of sloppy fingers.
What actually caught my eye is in paragraph two, re: Kolb.
I’ve done the film work on Kolb and it’s a bit concerning.
I have not. I’m going to have to trust you on this one. Could you at least clue me in to your concerns?
He checks down plenty, and doesn’t have a big enough body of work.
Wait, the film concerned you because there wasn’t enough of it? Why didn’t you just say that instead of trying to claim that since you watched the film you have special “expert” insight on Kolb’s pigskin chucking ability?
Then he goes on to say he’d take Vince Young on account of his record, unfortunately for Fins fans, he says, the Redskins are first in line for Vince. Claims he heard it somewhere. I claim bullshit.
I’m dubious of “I heard”, more dubious of arguing that a player’s record is indcative of his talent at the position. You’d think a guy covering the Fins (Marino clearly wasn’t better than Trent Dilfer, Dilfer has a ring.) would share my view.
It’s true, Vince Young has a great win % as the Titans starter (near 75%), and Collins, same team, same years, was under 50%.
Still, by no statistical metric does Young appear to be anything more than an average, maybe slightly above average QB. I don’t see, especially on a team lacking the league’s best rusher, how he’ll suddenly become one.
Of course, the best part of “look at his record” arguments is that almost inevitably a QB will have a lower number on the win side one season, at that point you can bet whoever encouraged you to just look at the record will encourage you to ignore it.
Disregarding the tendency of political pundits to treat the President as sports pundits treat the QB—way too much credit, way too much blame—and overlooking the finding of fault with a President that just killed the bad guy (hey, the touchdown pass was a wounded duck…it was tipped…the running game set it up…the roughing the passer penalty kept the drive alive), this Andrew Malcolm post has a weird period that train wrecked my reading comprehension:
There may have been a little anxiety aboard those combat choppers. Who knows? We can’t hear from them. And, as every day, anxiety in the kitchens, hearts and mind of thousands of military families who put up with the terrifying uncertainty of the dangerous deeds their loved ones have volunteered to secretly do for their country.
I’m trying to walk it through: There may have been a little anxiety here. And anxiety there. It seems like it should work.
And, as every day, anxiety in the kitchens, hearts and mind of thousands of military families who put up with the terrifying uncertainty of the dangerous deeds their loved ones have volunteered to secretly do for their country.
I lack the expertise to comment definitively on the parts of speech but goddamnit I don’t like that last sentence. Not one bit.
What’s odd is the period before ‘and’ and the parenthetical ‘as every day’ makes the mind wait for the coordinated clause that will surely follow. A few examples of this type of sentence:
And as every day brought fresh phases of her character, her husband felt more and more that he had indeed won a pearl of great price.
——-
And as every day I knew more about medicines I was soon able to mix them so as to be of service to those who applied, and before eighteen months had expired I was trusted in mixing up all the prescriptions.
——-Love should lead to the expression of gratitude, pardon call forth thanksgiving,and, as every day is a day of mercy, so every day should be a day of prayer.
Each of the three could be rewritten with ‘and’ between the two clauses as a coordinating conjunction. The last one, for example, could be rewritten: “Every day is a day of mercy / And / Every day should be a day of prayer”
In Andrew Malcolm’s jacked-up version the ‘and’ doesn’t coordinate anything in the second clause at all which means the period should probably vanish. That would kill the parenthetical sarcastic rhetorical “Who knows? We can’t hear from them.”
There may have been a little anxiety aboard those combat choppers and, as every day, anxiety in the kitchens, hearts and mind of thousands of military families who put up with the terrifying uncertainty of the dangerous deeds their loved ones have volunteered to secretly do for their country.
Even then it ain’t pretty. The conjunction should probably be killed, two clauses left to stand on their own.
There may have been a little anxiety aboard those combat choppers. Who knows? We can’t hear from them. Certainly there was anxiety in the kitchens, hearts and mind of thousands of military families who put up with the terrifying uncertainty of the dangerous deeds their loved ones have volunteered to secretly do for their country.
That’s still ugly. I don’t think the cause is helped with the typo non-plural ‘mind’ in ‘kitchens, hearts and mind’, even worse is the weird series ‘kitchens, hearts and minds’ itself. What could fix it? Who knows? I guess mistakes like these are hazards of penning sarcastic (hence use of ‘may’, “Maybe they were anxious on the choppers. Who knows?”) pieces of pick on the President for the sake of it crap.
Sunday’s WaPo digital front page:
This is going to be tough to write, what with the blood and all. The pain too, so intense and unrelenting, it’s not easy to string together cohesive thoughts through it. Not to mention I’m still getting acclimated to my new monocular vision. Typing is iffy, at best.
Still, the ER is jamming and the hospital beams public wifi so I may as well write about the article so bad my left eye exploded while reading it.
Ponder this headline while I grab a new towel for my face, this one has completely soaked through.
…..
….
Back. How awesome is that headline? If it didn’t clue you in that this is going to be one of those poetic sport journalism pieces, well, it is. The problem with poetic sports journalism, of course, is not simply the overwrought prose, it’s that authors of poetic crap refuse to call spade-spades and instead make up new ways to describe home-runs, touchdowns, strike-outs and other sports terms that may be somewhat boring to use over and over again but are in fact actual names of actual things that occur in sports. It’d be as if a White House correspondent tried to describe walking up to the podium in flowery prose every time. He hit a home-run. Just say it.
LOS ANGELES – Fifteen pitches into his night, on a sinker that had come in unreasonably high and inside, Albert Pujols buried the baseball into the second row of the bleachers, over the lowest fence in left field, to the shortest distance from home plate to home run at Dodger Stadium.
What’s the sign for an unreasonably high slider? If they get crossed up does the pitcher mistakenly huck a reasonably high slider in to his unprepared catcher?
See how clever the word play is? High, inside, over, lowest, shortest. Clever though it may be it’s tortured like an Abu Ghraib prisoner chatting with a guard about his favorite team, the Chicago Cubs, and how he hasn’t seen or heard much about the Cubs, what with all the jihad, and the guard tells him all about Steve Bartmen and Prior and Wood and Lou and how Carlos Lee seems to be hurt all the time and how Mark Grace was gay and at that point the prisoner freaks out and rips all his clothes off.
Into, over, to…The construction works, think “Into the forest, over the bridge, to Grandma’s house we go” but how does “Into the forest, over the bridge, to the place farthest from our mother to us at Grandma’s house” work for you? Yeah, me neither.
And for those who learned chronological order in second grade you may be asking how the first row is farther from home plate than the second. I’ll tell you: Those fans got gypped.
Once convinced of the outcome, he lowered his head and plunged into his heavy-legged trot, returned and dabbed at the plate, pointed to the sky and clapped his gloved hands.
That’s a verb party right there. Look out nouns verbs are getting down. I bet Albert used to be bullied on account of his heavy-legs. “Albey, Albey, legs like an Oak tree!”
Two weeks into the season, he’d hit his second home run, bagged his seventh RBI, bumped up his batting average to .235.
Small sample size. How about a career comparison? Is this an unprecedented slow start? Does Pujols usually come out the spring gates mashing? Those stats would be good things to insert right here.
When he arrived in the dugout, he showed teammate Lance Berkman the swing that did it at the end of a nine-pitch at-bat against Hiroki Kuroda, pantomiming the bat skipping over the strike zone, his fists close to his chest, his eyes following the ball’s flight.
“Good grief, man,” Berkman half-shouted. “That was a great swing, an unbelievable pitch to hit out.”
Up and in, 92 mph, almost nobody puts that pitch – “A Hall of Fame pitch,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa called it – into fair territory. And almost nobody minimizes the top spin so that it carries that far.
“Not many,” Berkman said. “There’s a couple. Robinson Cano keeps that ball fair. That might be it.”
I guess this is an interesting anecdote. I guess. Still, “almost nobody hits that pitch” has no factual basis whatsoever. Those three paragraphs could have been better spent explaining, with actual facts, why Pujols’ two week slow start is issue enough to devote my reading attention to.
It’s the split-second genius of Pujols, borne of a single-minded journey, a devotion to the process, and a grudging willingness to live with the result. Not always happily, of course. He suffers fools and distractions with the same low-browed, dark-eyed stare, and having begun his contract year in what counts for him as a slump, there’d be plenty of both.
This is where it happened. My left-eye blew up. I felt some pressure behind it, closer to the center of head really, and what came first the pain or the bursting of my eyeball we’ll never know, but it went. Kershhloop. That’s the sound it made.
It’s the split-second genius of Pujols
I’ll give this a pass if only because ‘genius’ is frequently used by soccer fans to describe a great play. I’m not happy about it though.
borne of a single-minded journey
You’re sure his split-second genius is the product of a single-minded journey and not, say, awesome athleticism?
a devotion to the process
He swung and hit a pitch. What process are you talking about? What does this have to do with the origins of his split-second genius? What the hell is split-second genius? ??!?!#
and a grudging willingness to live with the result. Not always happily, of course.
Not only does this have nothing to do with his split-second genius but every baseball player lives with results because there are no other options. Also, ‘grudging’ means reluctant, which implies he’s never happy with the results but is willing to live with them.
He suffers fools and distractions with the same low-browed, dark-eyed stare, and having begun his contract year in what counts for him as a slump, there’d be plenty of both.
Kershhloop. There went the eye. I can’t risk my right-eye breaking this steamy pile of crap paragraph down anymore so I’m moving on. Reread it, ponder it, take it to open mic night and read it slowly over a bongo beat, but do so at your own risk. I’m not touching it.
Concepts introduced before this paragraph: Pujols slumping, Pujols possessing a hitting ability unlikely almost nobody, save for Robinson Cano.
Concepts introduced in this paragraph: Puljos woking hard, Pujols’ devotion to process, Pujols having a poker face when faced with fools and distractions, Pujols currently surrounded by many fools and distractions, these fools and distractions are related to his contract year.
All these have been introduced, none have been explained/explored/related/justified. None. I explained this to the 911 operator and she said, just be patient, they’re coming. And I perked up and said “Really, you read this article?” and she said, “No, the paramedics. They’re on the way.”
Spring training opened without a contract extension for Pujols, by consensus the best hitter in baseball, who perhaps had outgrown the middle-market Cardinals. And the season opened with Pujols 100 points below his career batting average, delivering four hits in 19 plate appearances with runners in scoring position and having acquired an unusual affinity for double-play grounders.
Affinity means ‘like’, Tim. Is that what you meant to say, that Pujols has learned to like grounding into double plays? If so, that’s insane.
All temporary inconveniences, to be sure, but it is news when Albert Pujols does not hit – for a day, for a series, for two weeks. This is the product of 10 years of split-second genius, piled end to end, forming the image of Pujols – knees bent, quads engaged, hands at the shoulder, head slightly tilted and stock still. There is no beating Pujols, not for very long anyway, and on a night he otherwise grounded to shortstop twice, grounded to the pitcher once, popped to right-center field and left a runner at third base with less than two out, a moment arrives that for its brilliance could only be Pujols’.
Wait, so nothing you wrote up there mattered? I gave you my left eye for you to say Pujols is in a temporary slump that won’t last long?!!!
“It’s nature,” Berkman said. “Hitting is as much an athletic skill as speed and arm strength. You can’t teach somebody to hit. You can’t make a great hitter.”
No, Lance, hitting is a product of a single-minded journey, a devotion to the process, and a grudging willingness to live with the result. Duh, everyone knows that.
As of lunch time Thursday in Pasadena, where Pujols awoke after a late flight from Phoenix the night before and dined with long-time agent Dan Lozano, 73 regular position players possessed a lower batting average than he did.
Dozens had driven in fewer runs, scored fewer runs, batted worse with men on base.
Not many, however, carried it all so ferociously. He is obsessed by routine. By mid-afternoon, with the clubhouse television locked on a mid-game no-hit attempt by Washington’s Jordan Zimmermann, Pujols is sitting on a folding chair away from everyone. He’s pulled the chair to a red trunk, placed a laptop computer atop the trunk, and with his left hand is toggling through recent at-bats.
Nothing you described sounds ferocious, it sounds like a professional baseball player being a professional. Also, how do you know no one else gives a fuck about their slow season start?
“It’s all about the process,” La Russa said. “He’s relentless. He’s never going to stop.”
Except for when he dines with long-time agent Dan Lozano. Has to stop for that, of course.
…
Tim told us nothing in this article except Pujols will start hitting again because he is really good at baseball.
This is digital sports journalism in a jar with my largest found chunk of formaldehyde supported left eyeball. Fast deadline, requirement to churn out tons of content (Tim Brown just wrote 17 articles, BTW) and therefore no research whatsoever. Just plop it down as it comes.
Let’s rehash the concepts introduced: Pujols slumping, Pujols possessing a hitting ability unlikely almost nobody, Puljos woking hard, Pujols’ devotion to process, Pujols having a poker face when faced with fools and distractions, Pujols currently surrounded by many fools and distractions, these fools and distractions are related to his contract year.
Let’s rehash the evidence backing up those concepts:
The Lost Art of Mini-Grilling 