Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Tebow
I read the following article about Tebow...
Personally, I really like Tim Tebow. He seems like one of the nicest, most genuine people in all of sports. I read about him doing lots of stuff most Christians won't do, such as visiting prisons. He is way more evangelical than I am, but he doesn't seem the least bit hypocritical, which is why I like him.
But I do have a question, is all the controversy really about his faith?
I have some issues with that. He's not the only very outspoken Christian I can remember in sports. Kurt Warner was very outspoken about his faith, and I don't remember anyone saying bad things about him. Reggie White also. Lance Bernmak is a very conservative Christian, who has done numerous interviews about his faith, an I never heard it mentioned during the World Series.
So, why is everyone so hard on Tebow? I would argue that people are critical of Tebow because he did not earn his starting position. If you look back at training camp, he was 3rd string. You could argue that he got his starting opportunity because his army of fans put up billboards demanding that he start, and that they threatened not to buy season tickets, not to come to games, etc.
I really think he gets a lot of criticism because he really didn't earn his position. Make no mistake, he has done this best with his opportunity. I just have a hard time with the belief that he is "controversial" because of his faith.
Credit where credit is due and Food Stamps
I have to give credit where credit is due. I read the following horrible story on Huffingtonpost.
I felt sure that Fox News would be all over this story, but when I went to their website, I couldn't find it anywhere. One of the things I dislike about Fox News the most, and most major news outlets, for that mater, is that they often take an isolated or very rare event and extrapolate it and make broad, general statements. You could say that MSNBC did this with the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, and I would say you are correct.
So, when I didn't see a story as being an example of the moral decay of the welfare system, I was pleasantly surprised - maybe I'm just too jaded.
I think we can all agree that this woman had serious issues, and to extrapolate anything from it is essentially pointless. With that being said, I will now extrapolate some meaning from it. I think that people in extreme financial difficulty can feel extremely hopeless and desperate - this is obviously the extreme of extremes, but just thinking about it, I would like to propose a theoretical questions...
A 28 year old woman with 3 children, ages 8, 5, and 2 is suddenly in a dire financial situation. Her husband, who was the breadwinner of the family leaves, and now she has no income of money.
What does she do?
Sunday, December 4, 2011
College Football Playoffs
It is 12:41 pm on December 4, a little less than 6 hours before the BCS rankings are announced.
The USA Today poll just came out. Earlier today, I read that Ok St. will need to get 25% of the 2nd place votes to pass Alabama. They got 37%. So, it looks like that Alabama will be #2 in every poll, but computers will determine that OK St. should play for the national championship.
I thought this was a good time to bring out the playoff debate again. I love this debate, as it is one of only two area where my brother and I always disagree (the other is whether or not Hellboy is a good movie).
Instead of getting excited about watching Alabama and Stanford play in the Rose Bowl, LSU and OK St. in the Sugar, with the tournament winner to be the undisputed national champion, we will all gather around the TV sets tonight to see what the computers think.
What a great way to determine a national champion.
My main argument for a playoff is this, it sure as hell would be entertaining. Some of the best memories I have are watching the NCAA basketball tournament with 50 people, brackets in hand, at my house, while playing pickup bball at halftime. From a pure entertainment standpoint, a tournament would be wonderful.
From a more logical / pure sports argument, I would ask what is the goal of a championship? Most people would agree that it is to establish who the best team is in a given year. If that is the case, then I think we have things completely backwards.
For instance, if MLB decides to just put the two best teams at the end of the year into the world series, I would be fine with that. Baseball plays 162 game, all against the same basic level of competition. At the end of the regular season, we know who the two best teams are. You can say that a team that wins a 17 game playoff (approx 10% of the games played in the regular season) is the Champion, but it doesn't mean they were the best that year. Same for basketball and hockey (huge number of games again similar competition).
On the other hand, college football has very few games and by far the most unbalanced schedules. There really isn't any way to know if Alabama is better than OK. State. Of all the sports where you can just pick two teams to play for the championship, is sure isn't college football.
So for everyone that likes the current system, hope you enjoy Stanford vs. Kansas State and Alabama vs. Michigan. Two completely meaningless games.
ps- I hope I'm wrong and Alabama gets into the NC game. Then I take back everything I just wrote.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
the point of this blog...
Over the past few years, I've participated in hundreds of discussions / arguments on facebook, mostly over politics and religion. The more discussions I have, the more I realize that they are all essentially pointless. I'm fairly certain that no one has ever changed their opinion about anything because of a facebook argument.
At the same time, I have become fascinated with the diversity of the people arguing, or more specifically, the lack thereof. Most of my friends are very similar to me - 30 something, southern, white and protestant (usually from very conservative churches). Almost all of them are well educated and thoughtful. Most come from loving, stable homes and many have started wonderful families.
I'm amazed that people from such similar backgrounds can have such differences in opinions.
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to have a blog where the point is not to argue or convince anyone, but simply to find out exactly where our opinions differ and why.
If nothing else, it will keep all my arguments off facebook, which I'm sure will make a lot of people happy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)