Posted: August 10, 2021 by datechguy in baseball, Sports
I’m entering my 2nd year of not watching MLB or going to MLB games as they’ve become woke and this week has been an excellent example of why that decision isn’t going to change anytime soon.
First in Colorado we had the spectacle of the Colorado Rockies and the MLPA rushing to condemn a fan who was shouting for a mascot named “Dinger” (baseball slang for Home Run appropriate for a park like Colorado where many are hit) so he could get a picture with his children and grandchildren hounded and condemned because someone thought he had said “nigger” instead when an opposing player was at bat.
Now the player didn’t hear him say this and the film showed the fan was not playing attention to the player but did the Rockies or MLB take the time to check this out? NO they rushed out a statement to make sure that that they were properly woke and properly anti racist and thus this grandfather got a lot of unwelcome attention that he didn’t deserve.
The key line from a tweet from a reporter covering the story:
I spoke to the fan, who isn't sure whether he wants his identity released out of fear of the Twitter mob. I'll respect that.
He said he was at the game with his wife and grandkids. He wanted a picture of all of them with Dinger.
Since right and wrong apparently aren’t in play here in a post Christian society let me frame this is a practical ends and means way that MLB will understand?
How anxious do you think he will be to return to the park, how anxious will his children be to return to the park and how anxious do you think his grandchildren will be to go to the park after the team and the players association along with the twitter mob piled on?
And as a fan aren’t you just delighted with the notion that if someone mishears something I’ve said MLB & their players association and the journalists that cover them will be delighted to sic the mob upon you?
If I was MLB I’d think long and hard about the incentive system I am creating.
SHREVEPORT – In absolutely shocking news today (insert sarcasm here), the standardized testing scores for Louisiana’s students last year show a significant drop as both teachers and students attempted to conduct classes in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, there are now calls to shelve the annual school report card scores:
The letter grades are typically announced in November and are aimed at showing taxpayers how schools are performing.
But scores in math, English, science, and social studies took a nosedive that affected virtually every school system in the state.
Scores on the exams, called LEAP 2025, fell 5 percentage points in meeting state achievement targets after years of inching up a point or two annually.
This is an indicator to why so many people distrust the suits that run public education. Who in the world ever thought this would turn out any differently? Who thought these test scores would resemble anything like a normal year? Who thought it was even a good idea to go ahead with standardized testing in a year when students were dealing with unprecedented stress because of the pandemic?
It doesn’t matter how you feel about the pandemic; that’s not the issue here. Whether you believe it is a political conspiracy or the next bubonic plague – it doesn’t matter here. The events since March 2020 have affected literally everyone in some degree or another, but I’m not sure we are paying enough attention to how it has affected our at risk kids, or even kids in general.
Let me tell you what I saw.
I taught in a Title 1 school for twenty years and that’s where I was when this all rolled out. In our high school we had kids in extreme poverty, terrible home situations, homeless kids, stories that would make you weep. Not every kid was in a dire situation but by far the majority had some level of poverty at the very least. I say this only to indicate the level of stress at which these kids were already functioning.
In March 2020 we closed schools and they did not reopen until August. For at least five months these kids lost the support system of the school including the administrators and educators who look out for them, who look to be sure they have food, a roof over their head, or if abuse is present. In our school we have paid electric bills, bought shoes, found housing, provided meals and clothing when it was needed. Maybe this isn’t the job of a school, but it’s the job of humanity.
When we returned in August, our kids were so damn glad to be back in a social, structured environment, we had zero classroom management issues. But, we had other issues.
We dealt with quarantines and A/B schedules. We struggled with online classes, kids with no technology, kids with no home support, kids that never logged on. Imagine the struggle of a child trying to log onto an online Chemistry class while mom is entertaining all night, your house is filled with people some of whom you don’t know. You aren’t getting proper rest or food. Maybe you don’t have electricity. You don’t know where you are going to be sleeping from one night to another. Any number of heartbreaking situations.
And we expect these kids to learn at the same level as a normal year? And then give them a standardized test?
When our State Dept of Education announced that we would not waive testing as some other states had done, as teachers we had no choice but to do our best to prepare these kids as best we could. So many of them felt unfathomable stress over these tests. It broke my heart.
The State wanted the data. They wanted to see how far students had dropped, what the learning loss was because of the pandemic.
So now they know.
And I could have told them all along that the scores would drop. I had only half my kids in class at any given time. In addition to the quarantines and the illness, as teachers we also dealt with incessant cleaning and sanitizing our rooms and equipment. We had to modify lessons and deal with changing restrictions and guidelines on a weekly basis. Kids weren’t the only ones feeling the stress.
And so now those brilliant Suits in Education think maybe it could be a good idea to waive school report card scores. We spend a bloody fortune on standardized testing which we knew would show a significant drop yet we forked over all that money anyway, and for what?
For what?
What has been gained from all that testing?
Nothing.
And the suits in Education wonder why we rail against public education.
You know I’d take Twitter’s assurances that they are simply retraining people who are spreading “disinformation” more seriously if i didn’t have direct experience of them lying about me on twitter for about a month
For the life of me I can’t understand why people are so shocked that a pol who would consent to have a national election stolen on his behalf is willing to openly violate his oath of office. Doesn’t the former guarantee the latter?
As I wrote the day he was sworn in Biden is the first president in history to violate his oath of office by taking it.
At My work they re-imposed a mask mandate so my 18 foot Dr. Who scarf has returned with it wrapped once around my face. Alas while I work in Massachusetts I don’t work at the Obama Birthday Party where apparently immunity rules.
If my wife was not currently sick out of work with me providing the insurance…
It’s amazing to watch people who have been held over Jan 6th being charged with “unlawful parading” and locked up for it after watching DA’s let people who rioted, looted and burned cities off without prosecution. Cripes even the Kavanaugh protesters banning on the doors of the SCOTUS were never charged.
I’m increasingly heading toward the opinion they want to provoke us to an actual revolt so they can kill us with a clear conscience
While Christ specifically states that those Christians at prayer beaten by ANTIFA in Portland are blessed, said blessings don’t apply to the police of Portland who stood by and let it happen apparently under orders. That not a single one of the officers had the courage to risk the anger of their superiors to protect them speaks volumes about those who have not already left or retired and explains why Portland’s sudden attempt to hire police is doomed to fail.
Finally it’s worth remembering that even if the GOP takes the house and / or senate back in 2022 and Trump takes the White House in 2024 the trust that federal institutions threw away will not return. After all the lower downs who have happily enforced our oppression of the last six months+ will still be in place.
Our enemies sure got their monies worth out of this administration.
Did you hear about the massive organized protest by American conservatives of the Toyko Olympics?
No?
That’s because there wasn’t one.
The 2020 Summer Olympics, delayed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, got off to a bad start, unless you are woke.
In a women’s soccer match between Team USA and Sweden, athletes from both sides took a knee rather than stand for the Star Spangled Banner. Sweden won the match, 3-0. The US women’s soccer team was the overwhelming favorite to win a gold medal in Tokyo, it ended up with the bronze.
Earlier this year the International Olympic Committee rescinded its Rule 50, which stated “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”
The Olympics are a dying movement. More on that in a bit. But the woke protests just add accelerant to the fire.
In competitive sports success of course is achieved by winning a game, crossing the finish line first, or lifting the heaviest object, or throwing it the farthest.
The Olympics are a big business, despite being comprised of not-for-profits such as the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, or more commonly in other nations by government ministries of sport.
The big money for the Olympics comes from TV rights and revenue for the broadcasters. If you envision television ratings as a shot put, then that heavy ball appears to have been thrown by a weak child.
NBC is giving advertisers who bought airtime during the Tokyo Olympics extra commercials due to underwhelming ratings for this year’s 2020 Olympic Games, fueled by a pandemic-weary population and backlash against woke athletes protesting the U.S. flag and national anthem.
NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua insisted to the Associated Press that the network would still make money on the 2020 Olympics – but left out details about how much.
NBC’s primetime coverage of the Tokyo Olympics on July 26 averaged 14.7 million viewers — for a 49% drop compared to the equivalent night from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and 53% less than the 2012 London Olympics. The opening ceremonies saw their lowest viewership since 1988.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, there are more television offerings than ever. And some people will watch Olympics segments on NBC’s YouTube channel and those viewership numbers are not included in the network’s ratings total.
But the viewership numbers still suck.
Wokism likely contributed to the ratings rout. That may change soon as conservatives are mobilizing against Critical Race Theory and the Democrats’ hard shove to the far-left, but conservatives don’t have a boycott apparatus in place, such as the liberals do with medium-sized groups such as Media Matters and tiny Twitter armies such as Sleeping Giants. That’s because those on the American right calmly reach for the remote and watch something else when they are offended. Or they simply stop buying products, such as what I did after Gillette ran its toxic masculinity television commercial two years ago. I loved its Good News razors. But I don’t want to put money into the hands of a company that insults me. And now I use Bic razors–which I like better and I probably never would have considered purchasing until that nasty commercial. Gillette owes Bic a finder’s fee for making me a customer. [Corrrection: a commenter mentioned that it should have been written the other way around.]
People watch sports, or buy tickets to live events, for many reasons, but the drama of a competitive event is likely the primary one. Not for the politics, that’s for sure.
And conservatives don’t need a Media Matters-type group to tell us what not to watch. Again that may change soon but the American right doesn’t possess the kneejerk compulsion to regularly pressure companies to avoid a network, a website, or a television program.
NBC is in trouble because it already purchased the US rights to every Olympics through 2032. Because leftism is a quasi-religion don’t look for the IOC to reinstate its protest ban for its athletes any time soon.
And yes, the Olympic movement is dying. Only two cities bid for the 2024 summer games, Paris and Los Angeles. The French capital was the winner and LA was immediately awarded the 2028 games. There was no other bidder. And for the 2032 Summer Olympics, the “winner” was Brisbane, Australia, the only bidder.
For the 2022 and 2026 winter games there were only two bidders each.
Of course that’s because organizing the quadrennial Olympics are big money losers for host cities. Los Angeles managed to turn a profit with its last summer games–but that was in 1984. The 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro were particularly ghastly financial debacles. Allegations of corruption in the bidding process over the years makes one wonder how stupid supposedly smart people can be.
Athens is a city of many notable ruins–and now Greece’s largest city can add numerous sites from the ’04 games for tourists to marvel at.
As the expression goes, when you get woke you go broke.
But the Olympics were already arguably broke.
Next year Beijing hosts the Winter Olympics. I can think of a bunch of reasons not to watch. China is a communist dictatorship, it has a long history of doping among its athletes, there are over two-hundred concentration camps that incarcerate Uighurs in China, and what else? Oh yeah, there’s a good chance that the COVID-19 virus escaped from the Wuhan laboratory, which destroyed the international economy and killed millions.
Woke protests will seal the deal for me and many more in a few months when the Olympic flame is lit in Beijing.
Corporate CEOs need to listen to the millions of quiet conservative protesters like myself and not the dozen or so left-wing screamers who show up at their board meetings. There are more of us than them.
Oh and if you’re wondering who this guy is and if you should help pay my writers and our bandwidth costs, I’m the guy who is a room full of hostile press during press conferences actually asked Donald Trump neutral or friendly questions.
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