Monthly Archives: November 2008

I remember during my final year at BYU, journalist Helen Thomas came to the campus to speak with the journalism students and then give a speech to the entire student body. It was a treat for us journalism students, but it caused quite a stir within the rest of the student body, as we were in the early stages of the Iraq war and Thomas was an outspoken critic coming to a very Republican campus. But what’s college for if not to be exposed to new ideas and ways of thinking, right?

I wrote a column on that theme for the campus newspaper at the time, which I think might be one of the best pieces I’ve ever written; and as luck would have it, it never made it online, only into print. Basically, I argued that if George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Helen Thomas, Saddam Hussein, or the Devil himself came to speak at your school, for heaven’s sake–go listen to what they have to say! Helen Thomas was in freaking China when Nixon went for his historic visit; she’s covered nine presidents; and some BYU students didn’t think it was appropriate for her to be giving a speech on campus because she was against the war. Sheesh.

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. FishbowlDC either posted or found an interview with Helen Thomas about what it’s like to be covering her TENTH president.

“I’m still as mean as ever. I’m already going after Barack…” The full video is below:

This Slate article makes me happy. The article discusses Obama’s use of social networks and the Internet to mobilize voters, and how he will use similar ideas in his administration to communicate with the citizenry.

As a tech writer and as a citizen, I think that’s a fantastic idea that’s long overdue. Reinstate fireside chats, but on YouTube.

The best way to calm the skeptics and Obamaphobes–and there are many, some of whom are readers of this blog–is through transparency and direct communication with them. And the best way to achieve that is to make sure as few of Obama’s words as possible are run through the media’s filters before they reach the ears of the people. The media simply can’t be relied on to accurately transmit a message without distorting the context or the meaning. Hannity and Olbermann can spew whatever trash they want after Obama gets his message out, but the trick will be to make sure the message is being transmitted first directly from the administration and not through Hannity and Olbermann.

Obama’s transition web site, Change.gov, is a step in that direction. It’s pretty sparse still, but there was an article on there today about the lobbying rules Obama is enacting for the transition. It gives a quick summary of the various rules (which it says are “the strictest, and most far reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history.”) and a few quotes about them. I think the article should have gone further and linked to the actual guidelines themselves, but it’s a start.

There should be comfort in all this for the die-hard conservatives. With an Internet-enabled president, if you disagree with him you can at least leave a comment on his blog and tell him so. Or just write it on his Facebook wall. Or make a YouTube video response. Or direct-message him on Twitter. Or…

So, Jeff called me out not once but twice during his guest-blogging stint over at the Smiths blog, arguing that baseball is actually better than football.

I could go point by point through his argument and show that he’s wrong, stupid, and a terrible person, but the reader consensus over there was that his posts were boring (and I would add “insufferable” as well), so my brilliant rebuttal would probably be boring too.

A few brief points:

The highest acheivement in baseball, the “Perfect Game,” is an absolute snoozefest involving no one on the field but pitcher, batter, and catcher.

I have to rebut Jeff by saying that every position in football is a skill position (yes, even the O-Line, as is shown in this brilliant blog post), and there’s no way a football team can win with 10 players, no matter which team is playing or which position is missing, offense or defense.

Also, and this is the last point, in football, all 11 players actually have a very complicated strategy and assignment in every play. (Again, read the above post and then read this one on the amazing complexity of an inside linebacker’s job.) The strategy for the right fielder, by contrast, is “catch ball” or “force out at second.”

The mind game between pitcher and hitter might be complex and require strategy, but Moneyball argues that stupid players might actually be better at it, because they don’t overthink it.

And that is all. Sorry so boring. Jeff started it.