Stupid Sports Coverage Tricks

Last week the Versus Network made an unbelievably stupid call at the end of Sage 3 of the Tour of California Bike race. The race, which started in San Francisco and ended at the boardwalk in the California coastal town of Santa Cruz was running late. So at 7.p.m. Eastern time, with less then a mile to go, as the riders in the front were jockeying for position for the final sprint, Versus switched to a previously scheduled NHL Hockey pregame show!

The race leaders were literally less than two minutes from the finish line, but Versus felt that a hockey interview was more important for viewers to see. The actual game did not begin for another 10 minutes, so there was no reason for any fans to miss any action.

The race announcers on Versus did direct viewers to the web site where they could supposedly watch the end of the race online, but viewers who tried to do that reported that the site was difficult to navigate and had greatly slowed due to the increase in network traffic.

Versus issued a statement explaining that it had to switch away from cycling due to "contractual obligations." If that's really true, then the contracts need to be negotiated with a little more common sense.

This incident reminded many of the "Heidi Game" in 1968. With 65 seconds left in a Raiders/Jets NFL game, NBC switched over to the scheduled movie, "Heidi," causing viewers to miss the Raiders come back to score two touchdowns in the final minute.

I'm not complaining for myself since I watched the race coverage on TiVo several days later (my Tivo cut off the recording just as the network switched). But you'd think that under the circumstances Versus would have posted on their website the last few miles of the race as it should have been broadcast. But it's not there - just a 3 minute "highlights" of the whole race.

What about the Coffee Farmers?

The May 19, 2010 Between Friends comic expresses a question I’ve had for a while:



The sensible financial advice has been to put your many into things you need and savings. But a huge part of our economy is based on things people don’t really need. Even if everyone did allow themselves to buy frivolous things with cash only after paying for necessities and making proper contributions to their IRAs, the market for things people don’t need would still be much smaller than our economy is accustomed to.

This is a paradox I can’t resolve. The number of working people required to meet people’s legitimate needs is much smaller than the number of people who need jobs. Since Tea Party values say you can’t pay people who aren’t working, how can you employ everyone if no one buys things they don’t need with money they don’t have?

American Flags at Cinco De Mayo

The following story out of California recently made headlines:

Students Kicked Off Campus for Wearing American Flag Tees: Freedom of expression or cultural disrespect on Cinco de Mayo?

On any other day at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, Daniel Galli and his four friends would not even be noticed for wearing T-shirts with the American flag. But Cinco de Mayo is not any typical day especially on a campus with a large Mexican American student population.

Galli says he and his friends were sitting at a table during brunch break when the vice principal asked two of the boys to remove American flag bandannas that they wearing on their heads and for the others to turn their American flag T-shirts inside out. When they refused, the boys were ordered to go to the principal's office.

...

The boys said the administrators called their T-shirts "incendiary" that would lead to fights on campus."What Mexican-Americans were to have a Mexican Flag on July 4?"

The talk shows are asking. Well it is happened. Here's an old journal entry of mine from July 4, 1994:

It was a mild summer evening in Victorville. The smell of hot dogs and the sounds of rock 'n roll filled the air as local residents waited for the Fourth of July fireworks show to begin.

I spotted them in the parking lot as I rode my bike to the entrance. I saw a faded yellow van with a large Mexican Flag hanging out of the window. As I passed it I looked in and thought of asking them just what they were up to. A young Latino man was at the wheel. Rather than being bold, I let them go their way. This may get interesting, I thought.

They walked into the bleacher area, holding their colors high. A young man wearing a black and gray Pendleton, followed by several women and a few other guys. They marched back and forth past the bottom of the bleachers, then found an area at the top of the bleachers to sit. As the rock band finished and began removing their equipment, the man with the flag walked down in front of the stage waving his flag back and forth, provoking a loud chorus of boos, "USA," and "This is a fucking American holiday!"

Next they took the flag back up to their seats high in the bleachers, but every few minutes they took it down to the bottom to wave it some more, provoking more angry shouts from the other spectators.

It almost got ugly, a man with a very serious look in his eyes walked up and tried to grab the flag away. An angry group of men gathered and shouted back and forth. No blows were exchanged, but they were not far from that point.

When they returned to their seats again, families started leaving the bleachers nearby, looking for a safer vantage point to watch the show. When they brought their flag down again, they were stopped by a city representative who told them in no uncertain terms to stop showing the flag.

"But were not doing anything! We have a right to carry this flag!" they protested. Finally they agreed to leave.

As they marched to the front gate, they were met by two sheriffs on mountain bikes and a couple of fair security officers. The shouting continued as the officer tried to explain that the fourth of July was for everybody and they could not wave a Mexican flag here.

An 50ish Latino gentleman was talking about starting a "Latino coalition." As the standard bearers marched toward the gate, I asked him what the point of all of this was. He said that the kids just wanted to celebrate the Mexican soccer team's performance in the World Cup, and that people need to accept the fact that there are a lot of Mexican Americans here. I told him that I have lived in southern California all of my life, and have been around people of Mexican decent all of my life, and I still didn't see the point of angering people in this fashion.

This demonstration was an example of one group's attempts to justify their feelings of victimization. People of Mexican decent have always lived in California, they ARE part of the culture here, other than the illegal aliens they ARE American citizens, and EVERYBODY here knows that. But to compensate for the group's poor self-image, they take the high moral ground of the persecuted victim. To re-enforce feelings of persecution, they need evidence of persecution. What better proof of persecution is there than getting booed, yelled at, and kicked out of a public event just for parading a symbol of your cultural pride?

I should have told the man that this demonstration would cause the EXACT OPPOSITE of his stated purpose. The result was resentment of Latinos, not greater acceptance. But the result was exactly what he REALLY wanted, which was to create "proof" that his group was a despised minority by doing things that cause them to be a despised minority.