Tuesday Morning Quarterback

[heyzeus]

I just can't take this guy anymore.

The guy is so full of himself, and so strident in his moral judgments, that he's just insufferable. I used to find his observations on sports interesting, and unique in their perspective. But I give up. No more 500 page columns shall I read I'm done.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... ortCat=nfl

This week's column harps about clothing catalogs for "end of summer" that arrive in mid june. Then he spends several long paragraphs complaining about the NCAA basketball tournament that happened in MARCH. 5 months ago. And also Spider Man 3, which came out long ago as well.

bottom line, I should have quit reading Easterbrook when he was fired from ESPN the first time for his commentary about "the Jews who run Hollywood."

Rant over!

[Cronos]

One of the more pointless and meandering of writers on ESPN's payroll, and that says a lot considering what I think of a lot of the page 2 columnists. About the only one I really like anymore is DJ Gallo. That guy is awesome.

bottom line, I should have quit reading Easterbrook when he was fired from ESPN the first time for his commentary about "the Jews who run Hollywood."

He really wrote that? Wow.

[heyzeus]

One of the more pointless and meandering of writers on ESPN's payroll, and that says a lot considering what I think of a lot of the page 2 columnists. About the only one I really like anymore is DJ Gallo. That guy is awesome.

bottom line, I should have quit reading Easterbrook when he was fired from ESPN the first time for his commentary about "the Jews who run Hollywood."

He really wrote that? Wow.

Slate recaps the controversy well here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2090091/

Here's what he wrote:
"Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice."

[G. Keenan]

One of the more pointless and meandering of writers on ESPN's payroll, and that says a lot considering what I think of a lot of the page 2 columnists. About the only one I really like anymore is DJ Gallo. That guy is awesome.

bottom line, I should have quit reading Easterbrook when he was fired from ESPN the first time for his commentary about "the Jews who run Hollywood."

He really wrote that? Wow.

Slate recaps the controversy well here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2090091/

Here's what he wrote:
"Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice."

That gets a WTF.

[Popeye_Card]

One of the more pointless and meandering of writers on ESPN's payroll, and that says a lot considering what I think of a lot of the page 2 columnists. About the only one I really like anymore is DJ Gallo. That guy is awesome.

bottom line, I should have quit reading Easterbrook when he was fired from ESPN the first time for his commentary about "the Jews who run Hollywood."

He really wrote that? Wow.

Slate recaps the controversy well here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2090091/

Here's what he wrote:
"Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice."

That gets a WTF.

I really enjoy TMQ. One of the few columns I make a point to read each week.

As for his comments on Eisner and Weinstein, it was in reference to a particular movie (Kill Bill), and I believe his comments were justified in the vein of the morality of green-lighting movies with ultraviolence just to make a profit when your own people were subjected to such violence not but 60 years ago. The big problem, of course, is that Eisner is ultimately his boss at ESPN, thus his firing. Here is the full Easterbrook story in context. Specifically, here is the section just before the above quoted section.

Corporate sidelight: Kill Bill is distributed by Miramax, a Disney studio. Disney seeks profit by wallowing in gore--Kill Bill opens with an entire family being graphically slaughtered for the personal amusement of the killers--and by depicting violence and murder as pleasurable sport. Disney's Miramax has been behind a significant share of Hollywood's recent violence-glorifying junk, including Scream, whose thesis was that murdering your friends and teachers is a fun way for high-school kids to get back at anyone who teases them. Scream was the favorite movie of the Columbine killers.

Set aside what it says about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement. Disney's CEO...

Personally, I think he has a point, and it shouln't just be silenced because he happens to mention the religions of the Hollywood moguls. It would apply to Christian moguls as well. How can you continue to greenlight projects whose sole purpose is to show ultraviolence, get people into the theaters, and make profits? But then again, I hate Tarrintino films and their brethren with a passion.

--P--

[heyzeus]

Eisner and Weinstein never claimed to be making movies from a particular moral or religious viewpoint. The tragedy of the Holocaust has nothing to do with Kill Bill, Scream, or any of the nonviolent movies they've worked on, which include The Human Stain; The Lord of the Rings Trilogy; Kate & Leopold; The Shipping News; The Others; Chocolat; Love's Labour's Lost; The Cider House Rules; Mansfield Park; She's All That; Shakespeare in Love; Good Will Hunting; The Wings of the Dove; Air Bud; The English Patient; Emma; Flirting with Disaster; Jane Eyre; and others. If you hate violence in movies, fine, say it. State your moral opposition. But don't try to take an event like the Holocaust and impute it to movie makers who have nothing to do with it just to suit your own agenda.

The statement that I find most abhorrent is the direct assertion: "Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else." That's a hurtful stereotype that he's intentionally using.

But my rant isn't about anti semitism from 3 years ago. Have you read his column today? Rather, have you tried to? It's horrible. The sermonizing, the harping on dull topics, the lack of focus, the harping on dull topics that happened many months ago. Totally unreadable. Which is a shame, because I used to enjoy his column.

[Popeye_Card]

The statement that I find most abhorrent is the direct assertion: "Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else." That's a hurtful stereotype that he's intentionally using.

But my rant isn't about anti semitism from 3 years ago. Have you read his column today? Rather, have you tried to? It's horrible. The sermonizing, the harping on dull topics, the lack of focus, the harping on dull topics that happened many months ago. Totally unreadable. Which is a shame, because I used to enjoy his column.

That comment indeed comes out wrong. His entire point was that exectutives put their morals to the side for profit, and in this particular case, Jews--who have a history of ultraviolence against their people--might theoretically be more sensitive to most. He's just calling them out for not having the backbone to say "No" to these types of projects, because they know it will be a money maker. It's part of a larger epidemic in this country of capitalism vs. morality--particularly religious-based morality.

As for his column today, I believe it's his first column since the NFL draft, so it's going to have some old stuff in it. I don't mind that it's old. I know his ego, sermonizing, and ultra-logic going in, and I'm not bothered by it. I actually kind-of like it in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way. He's a writer, and if I disagree with his conclusions, it's not a big deal to me. And if I'm not interested in a subject, I skip down to the next paragraph. Now if I had to sit and hear him say it in person, I'd consider him a bore.

--P--

[mikechamp]

I was going to say, TMQ typically writes a column after every week of the regular season, a couple during the pre-season as well as one after the draft.

That's why he's "catching up". A lot has happened since his last column.

Personally, I love his take on the "fallacy" of the announced amount of NFL salaries.

[Popeye_Card]

Personally, I love his take on the "fallacy" of the announced amount of NFL salaries.

I like a lot of his theories about tactics in football, namely not punting in the "maroon" zone (between the 20 and 50). IMO, you only punt when you're standing in your own side of the field, or you're facing more than 5 yards to go. You're given 4 downs--use all 4 as much as possible.

--P--

[mikechamp]

I like the maroon zone theory.... except when a team has a really good punter/special teams and a good defense.

I like the "Kick 'Til the 4th" theory, too.