Wow, the XFL is coming back. You can just taste the skepticism. If you've forgotten - or just blinked at the wrong time - the XFL was an attempt at a new football league to rival the NFL, but folded after one season.
Many people are noticing that this revival is in many ways the opposite of the original. That league tried to play up the bad-boy reputation of players, while this one will ban anyone with a criminal record. The first one tried to make the game only part of the show, portraying the league as a big reality show. Now they're changing rules to make the game shorter.
I really doubt that criminal ban will last long; they'll have enough trouble finding players to begin with, and eliminating any talented players who fell off the straight-and-narrow is going to cut off a lot of potential recruits. Shortening the game could be good though; it's the sort of change that most sports could benefit from, but wouldn't have the courage to enact. Since there's a long history of rival sports leagues bringing in innovations that are later adopted by the main league (like the original XFL's on-field cameras) that could be this XFL's contribution.
The general feeling is that this is not going to succeed because they can't get around the problem that sports is about stardom, and fans want to see the best players, so a secondary pro league won't survive. But I don't know about that. Leagues like the MLS and CFL survive despite everyone knowing that they don't have the best players in the world at their sport. Of course, they have the advantage that the best players are in other countries, but the XFL will have the advantage that while they are playing in the spring, the best players are on vacation.
But I think there's another reason why a second football league could succeed. Consider college football. It's very popular, despite having a lower skill level than the pros. Of course, it has a few other advantages, such as the loyalty of alumni, and the fandom of people from pays off the US that aren't represented in pro sports (Alabama, Oklahoma, Nebraska etc.) But there's another thing it can offer that the NFL can't: weird teams that haven't been honed to an efficient but monotonous perfection.
College football still offers oddball approaches you never see in the NFL (successfully.) It would be great to see a professional league with teams using the triple option or running quarterbacks. So I think there could be a niche for a slightly odd, spring-based rival league.
Monday, January 29, 2018
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Like Mountains Beyond Mountains
I read about how builders are looking at North America's many dead or dying malls as a source of residential development. It makes sense; there's more of an appetite for denser cities, so developers and planners are pushing the idea of filling in underused land. And even relatively successful malls have leftover space from closed stores and the acres of parking they only need the week before Christmas. Here in Canada, a lot of malls will be looking to fill big gaps left by Target and Sears.
As a long time fan of malls, I love this idea. The only complaint I have is that they're talking about either knocking down the malls, or adding buildings on those sprawling parking lots. If it's the latter, it could help to save a dying mall by giving it a captive audience. And since malls are usually in places that have good transit, they make good places for apartment dwellers that may not want cars. That further adds to the idea that the stores will benefit.
But I think it would be great to actually keep it nice and mall-like. Each store becomes an apartment or condo. Larger stores like H&M could be the equivalent of the penthouse. And the counters in the food court could be bachelors once you take out all the kitchen equipment. You could even put a sign over the entrance to each living space with the occupant's name. Okay, that may be pushing it too far.
Alright, I wrote that thinking if would never happen, but it turns out it happened at the oldest mall in America. It looks pretty nice, though - this being a historic mall - it isn't nearly as campy as I'd hoped. Apparently, these developments are shying away from using the word "mall" in describing them, because they don't want to scare off young people who see them as part of a bygone age. But I figure that you could play up the mall angle to go after folks in my age group who will have fond memories of them. And I'm sure you'd get some young people attracted to the irony of it all.
In the past, I've discussed how today's housing doesn't really provide us with social engagement, but living in a mall could give people that semi-communal living that a lot of people would like. It's hard to get to know people around you when you just see them in the elevator occasionally. But you'd have far more chance for interaction when you're also shopping around them. And malls would also be more pleasant if the people weren't just rushing around in their own worlds, avoiding everyone but their immediate companions.
And imagine the apartments were built above the stores, overlooking the mall, like the offices in the Eaton Centre. That would give the mall a more impressive atmosphere, and the apartments would get a better view than just a panorama of suburbia. Just pray you don't get an apartment over a trendy clothing store with the music cranked to eleven.
But now I find that they did essentially this at the University of Alberta, where they put a residence over top of the student centre. That sounds like a great idea. Residences are often pushed off to the side of the campus, it would be more convenient to have an easy connection with everything. And it would give the students more opportunity to casually socialize.
As a long time fan of malls, I love this idea. The only complaint I have is that they're talking about either knocking down the malls, or adding buildings on those sprawling parking lots. If it's the latter, it could help to save a dying mall by giving it a captive audience. And since malls are usually in places that have good transit, they make good places for apartment dwellers that may not want cars. That further adds to the idea that the stores will benefit.
But I think it would be great to actually keep it nice and mall-like. Each store becomes an apartment or condo. Larger stores like H&M could be the equivalent of the penthouse. And the counters in the food court could be bachelors once you take out all the kitchen equipment. You could even put a sign over the entrance to each living space with the occupant's name. Okay, that may be pushing it too far.
Alright, I wrote that thinking if would never happen, but it turns out it happened at the oldest mall in America. It looks pretty nice, though - this being a historic mall - it isn't nearly as campy as I'd hoped. Apparently, these developments are shying away from using the word "mall" in describing them, because they don't want to scare off young people who see them as part of a bygone age. But I figure that you could play up the mall angle to go after folks in my age group who will have fond memories of them. And I'm sure you'd get some young people attracted to the irony of it all.
In the past, I've discussed how today's housing doesn't really provide us with social engagement, but living in a mall could give people that semi-communal living that a lot of people would like. It's hard to get to know people around you when you just see them in the elevator occasionally. But you'd have far more chance for interaction when you're also shopping around them. And malls would also be more pleasant if the people weren't just rushing around in their own worlds, avoiding everyone but their immediate companions.
And imagine the apartments were built above the stores, overlooking the mall, like the offices in the Eaton Centre. That would give the mall a more impressive atmosphere, and the apartments would get a better view than just a panorama of suburbia. Just pray you don't get an apartment over a trendy clothing store with the music cranked to eleven.
But now I find that they did essentially this at the University of Alberta, where they put a residence over top of the student centre. That sounds like a great idea. Residences are often pushed off to the side of the campus, it would be more convenient to have an easy connection with everything. And it would give the students more opportunity to casually socialize.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
The Fat Of The Land
Lots of people are looking at President Trump's cleanish bill of health after his first on-the-job physical. That surprised everyone by saying that he is in quite good health for a septuagenarian, and not, as assumed, like a sedentary fast-food devotee.
But putting aside his doctor's opinions, the numbers have raised doubts. It says that Trump is 6'3" and 240 pounds, which would count him as medically acceptable, though suspiciously close to the obese classification. That's led doubters to a lot of comparisons with athletes of similar size. For instance, Albert Pujols is the same height and a pound more, but more athletic looking than the President.
But that can be easily explained. After all, muscle is denser than fat, so an athlete is going to look slimmer than a non-exerciser of the same weight. A bigger oddity is his height. Although the physical pegged him at 6'3", he has apparently previously been listed as 6'2". Also, in photos, he looks to be of similar height to Barack Obama (6'1") and noticeably shorter than Jeb Bush (6'3".)
So lots of people have been making fun of the President's weight. It's far from the first time, though such jokes have been few and far between, since there's been so many other things to make fun of. Once again, I'm not really sure why I'm writing a blog post on this; it will probably be obsolete before I finish.
Ridiculing Trump's body has led to a question about the morality of humour. A long time ago, I noted that there are basically three reasons why you might make jokes at another's expense:
Most people would agree that the first category is acceptable. And all but the amoral would agree that the last is not (Keep in mind, we're only talking about the morality of humour, not the legality, so put the free speech placards away.) The second category is a bit more questionable. But I've always been okay with it.
Overall, a good way to decide whether a joke fits in an acceptable or unacceptable category is to ask whether you'd be comfortable saying it to the person who is the butt of the joke. If it's the first one, you wouldn't mind, because that person is in on the joke. The second should be okay too, as they'll be offended but you figure that they deserve it. And the third is unacceptable, since you'd be offending an innocent person, and you're really only making the joke because you assumed you'd never have to face the consequences.
So that's moral backing of my humour, which I've always tried to stick to in outlets such as my blog. I'm sure I haven't been completely faithful to it, but it's what I've tried to do.
In recent years, however, I've noticed that there's a flaw in the reasoning. I noticed it not with Trump, but with another not-so-sympathetic character in American politics, Newt Gingrich. I strongly disagree with his political priorities, as well as some of the things he's done in his personal life, so he would fit squarely into the second category.
He's also a bit overweight. And his round face tends to remind you of that fact. So I find that a lot of liberal comics use that weight and his general attractiveness as a convenient put-down. That made me feel uneasy. Sure, he may be an opportunistic bully who doesn't deserve to have his feelings respected. But insults are a bludgeon that hit everyone similar, most of whom have not done any of the things the original target did.
So I've added a caveat to that second kind of ridicule: you can make fun of these people, but only if you're going after the thing that made you want to attack them in the first place. If they are truly worthy of your scorn, you won't have trouble finding something.
But putting aside his doctor's opinions, the numbers have raised doubts. It says that Trump is 6'3" and 240 pounds, which would count him as medically acceptable, though suspiciously close to the obese classification. That's led doubters to a lot of comparisons with athletes of similar size. For instance, Albert Pujols is the same height and a pound more, but more athletic looking than the President.
But that can be easily explained. After all, muscle is denser than fat, so an athlete is going to look slimmer than a non-exerciser of the same weight. A bigger oddity is his height. Although the physical pegged him at 6'3", he has apparently previously been listed as 6'2". Also, in photos, he looks to be of similar height to Barack Obama (6'1") and noticeably shorter than Jeb Bush (6'3".)
So lots of people have been making fun of the President's weight. It's far from the first time, though such jokes have been few and far between, since there's been so many other things to make fun of. Once again, I'm not really sure why I'm writing a blog post on this; it will probably be obsolete before I finish.
Ridiculing Trump's body has led to a question about the morality of humour. A long time ago, I noted that there are basically three reasons why you might make jokes at another's expense:
- playful teasing, such as what goes on between friends
- ridicule of someone you don't like
- you can't think of any other topic for a joke. And also, you're an asshole.
Most people would agree that the first category is acceptable. And all but the amoral would agree that the last is not (Keep in mind, we're only talking about the morality of humour, not the legality, so put the free speech placards away.) The second category is a bit more questionable. But I've always been okay with it.
Overall, a good way to decide whether a joke fits in an acceptable or unacceptable category is to ask whether you'd be comfortable saying it to the person who is the butt of the joke. If it's the first one, you wouldn't mind, because that person is in on the joke. The second should be okay too, as they'll be offended but you figure that they deserve it. And the third is unacceptable, since you'd be offending an innocent person, and you're really only making the joke because you assumed you'd never have to face the consequences.
So that's moral backing of my humour, which I've always tried to stick to in outlets such as my blog. I'm sure I haven't been completely faithful to it, but it's what I've tried to do.
In recent years, however, I've noticed that there's a flaw in the reasoning. I noticed it not with Trump, but with another not-so-sympathetic character in American politics, Newt Gingrich. I strongly disagree with his political priorities, as well as some of the things he's done in his personal life, so he would fit squarely into the second category.
He's also a bit overweight. And his round face tends to remind you of that fact. So I find that a lot of liberal comics use that weight and his general attractiveness as a convenient put-down. That made me feel uneasy. Sure, he may be an opportunistic bully who doesn't deserve to have his feelings respected. But insults are a bludgeon that hit everyone similar, most of whom have not done any of the things the original target did.
So I've added a caveat to that second kind of ridicule: you can make fun of these people, but only if you're going after the thing that made you want to attack them in the first place. If they are truly worthy of your scorn, you won't have trouble finding something.
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Feel Good Ink
My parents asked me if I had bought the new book Fire and Fury. I had not, nor had they. It seems that we had each independently come to the same conclusion: it's a waste of money to buy the book, as you can just watch the news for a few days and they will read out the best parts to you.
Of course, you don't even need to do that much; the book can be summed up easily: Trump is an idiot. And you had probably already come to that conclusion. So I'm not sure why people are buying the book; you'll be reading anecdotes you've already heard, telling you something you already know. And apparently, it's now been leaked onto Wikileaks. I guess that site is trying to hurt the book sales as revenge for attacking their guy. And they're doing it by spreading a book that makes their guy look bad. Remember when the world sorta made sense?
An interesting aspect of the news around the book is a joke from cartoonist Ben Ward, who tweets as @pixelatedboat. He decided to spoof the bizarre anecdotes leaking out of the book by creating his own totally-exaggerated fake anecdote that was supposedly from the book. In his excerpt, it was alleged that Trump was very displeased that the TV in the White House does not have "The Gorilla Channel." This despite there never having been a gorilla channel. To placate him, aides created a fake Gorilla Channel by editing together Gorilla documentaries and feeding them on a loop to Trump's TV.
Of course, as many people are finding these days, it's pretty much impossible to ridicule through exaggeration. After all, making a fake cable channel is only a little beyond what we've heard White House employees do to placate their boss. I noticed that in one online discussion people were trying to assure themselves that the passage was fake, and the final convincing argument was not the content, but the fact that the author had put periods outside the quotes, which goes against standard editing practices.
What I found interesting is that Netflix tweeted a plea to stop asking them for the Gorilla Channel. By the same principle mentioned above, I have no idea if they are joking. But imagine if they aren't: here we all are making fun of Trump for wanting this channel that is quite silly and doesn't even exist. And yet, it turns out that given the chance, lots of people want the same thing.
And that's something that worries me in all this. Much as I don't like Trump, I worry that when we ridicule him, we let the rest of society off the hook. After all, the troubling aspect of his story is not the fact that he exists, but the fact that he has been allowed to take this much power. And to address that problem, we have to concern ourselves with the competence of our whole society, not just Trump. Reading about his exploits of stupidity makes us feel superior, but it allows us to avoid the need we all have to look at our inner Trump.
Of course, you don't even need to do that much; the book can be summed up easily: Trump is an idiot. And you had probably already come to that conclusion. So I'm not sure why people are buying the book; you'll be reading anecdotes you've already heard, telling you something you already know. And apparently, it's now been leaked onto Wikileaks. I guess that site is trying to hurt the book sales as revenge for attacking their guy. And they're doing it by spreading a book that makes their guy look bad. Remember when the world sorta made sense?
An interesting aspect of the news around the book is a joke from cartoonist Ben Ward, who tweets as @pixelatedboat. He decided to spoof the bizarre anecdotes leaking out of the book by creating his own totally-exaggerated fake anecdote that was supposedly from the book. In his excerpt, it was alleged that Trump was very displeased that the TV in the White House does not have "The Gorilla Channel." This despite there never having been a gorilla channel. To placate him, aides created a fake Gorilla Channel by editing together Gorilla documentaries and feeding them on a loop to Trump's TV.
Of course, as many people are finding these days, it's pretty much impossible to ridicule through exaggeration. After all, making a fake cable channel is only a little beyond what we've heard White House employees do to placate their boss. I noticed that in one online discussion people were trying to assure themselves that the passage was fake, and the final convincing argument was not the content, but the fact that the author had put periods outside the quotes, which goes against standard editing practices.
What I found interesting is that Netflix tweeted a plea to stop asking them for the Gorilla Channel. By the same principle mentioned above, I have no idea if they are joking. But imagine if they aren't: here we all are making fun of Trump for wanting this channel that is quite silly and doesn't even exist. And yet, it turns out that given the chance, lots of people want the same thing.
And that's something that worries me in all this. Much as I don't like Trump, I worry that when we ridicule him, we let the rest of society off the hook. After all, the troubling aspect of his story is not the fact that he exists, but the fact that he has been allowed to take this much power. And to address that problem, we have to concern ourselves with the competence of our whole society, not just Trump. Reading about his exploits of stupidity makes us feel superior, but it allows us to avoid the need we all have to look at our inner Trump.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Fairly Deal Stanton
For a few years there, it really seemed like baseball was fun again. Of course, locally that was because the Blue Jays were finally competitive, but even outside of that, things seemed different. The Royals win in a small market with a hard-working team. The Cubs finally ended their century-long drought, thanks to a team of rising stars. Then the Astros' clever rebuilding finally paid off. Even hateable over-spenders like the Yankees and Dodgers succeeded with likeable young talented players that were easy to root for.
But then with this Giancarlo Stanton trade, it was like bad baseball reasserting itself. If you're not familiar with it, here's what happened:
It's hard to imagine one story having a bigger collection of bad memories from the last twenty years. At least without mentioning steroids. Look at what it's done:
Now the trade is having cascading effects elsewhere. Fellow denizens of the AL east, the Tampa Bay Rays, had been the poster child for competitive small-market teams, but they traded their best player, Evan Longoria. Since he was signed to a team-friendly contact, trading him would seem to be the ultimate sign of giving up for the near future.
I'm worried about where the Jays are going in all this. Just before the Stanton trade, officials from Rogers - the team's owners - admitted they were considering selling the team. Combine these two stories, and one worries that not only are we going back to a late-nineties where our division rivals outspent us year-in, year-out, but we might even be headed down the same road as the Marlins. Thought it's existence, the Jays have always been owned by corporations (first Labatt's, then Rogers.) That's unusual though; traditionally, baseball teams have been owned by individuals. And now Major League Baseball has said that is the only way it will be in the future: they'll only approve individuals as owners, rather than corporations. That has people wondering, how many people in Canada could afford the $1 billion+ cost of the Blue Jays.
So now I'm worried that we're starting the same story, with the sale to someone who can't really afford the team, who'll have to turn it into a low budget, hope-the-prospects-are-good-eventually bottom-dweller. Going into this offseason, there was talk of trading Josh Donaldson to the Cardinals, and I had this whole argument I was going to put into a post about why that would be sending the wrong message, but now people are treating it like a foregone conclusion that unless the team gets off to a tremendous start, he's gone and the rebuilding begins.
It seems to me that the media is seeing things differently than the rest of us. Reporters are a lot more willing to accept the idea that the Jays will be rebuilding. I think it comes down to a subtlety of how the last few years of competitiveness have been perceived. For most of us fans, it wasn't just, "Yay, we're winning!" it was, "Yay, things are back to normal!" We weren't just successful, we felt like a real team again. The idea that we could be relegated back to being a have-not in perpetual rebuilding will be hard to take, even if brief periods of success are guaranteed.
But then with this Giancarlo Stanton trade, it was like bad baseball reasserting itself. If you're not familiar with it, here's what happened:
- New owners Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter bought a team they couldn't really afford, going deeply in debt
- Through either incompetence, or a desperation to get rid of the previous, widely-hated, owner, the league approved the sale anyway.
- Because of the debt, the new owners couldn't afford the salary of Stanton, the team's star.
- Because his rich contract included a no-trade clause, Stanton could veto any trade destination, and he demanded that the only team he'd go to would be the Yankees.
- Bargaining from a position of extreme weakness in which everyone knew they had to make a trade and it had to be with the Yankees, the Marlins hardly got anything in return.
- rather than try to win over the fans, co-owner/spokesperson Jeter has gone into hiding, not even showing up for the recent winter meetings.
It's hard to imagine one story having a bigger collection of bad memories from the last twenty years. At least without mentioning steroids. Look at what it's done:
- the Yankees are back to being the Evil Empire.
- one of the game's biggest stars has been revealed as a Kevin-Durant-type looking for a shortcut to a championship
- widely-loved superstar Jeter trashed his reputation in one move
- a team that was already having attendance problems has had the third firesale of its brief existence, and the second time they've done that without any success first.
Now the trade is having cascading effects elsewhere. Fellow denizens of the AL east, the Tampa Bay Rays, had been the poster child for competitive small-market teams, but they traded their best player, Evan Longoria. Since he was signed to a team-friendly contact, trading him would seem to be the ultimate sign of giving up for the near future.
I'm worried about where the Jays are going in all this. Just before the Stanton trade, officials from Rogers - the team's owners - admitted they were considering selling the team. Combine these two stories, and one worries that not only are we going back to a late-nineties where our division rivals outspent us year-in, year-out, but we might even be headed down the same road as the Marlins. Thought it's existence, the Jays have always been owned by corporations (first Labatt's, then Rogers.) That's unusual though; traditionally, baseball teams have been owned by individuals. And now Major League Baseball has said that is the only way it will be in the future: they'll only approve individuals as owners, rather than corporations. That has people wondering, how many people in Canada could afford the $1 billion+ cost of the Blue Jays.
So now I'm worried that we're starting the same story, with the sale to someone who can't really afford the team, who'll have to turn it into a low budget, hope-the-prospects-are-good-eventually bottom-dweller. Going into this offseason, there was talk of trading Josh Donaldson to the Cardinals, and I had this whole argument I was going to put into a post about why that would be sending the wrong message, but now people are treating it like a foregone conclusion that unless the team gets off to a tremendous start, he's gone and the rebuilding begins.
It seems to me that the media is seeing things differently than the rest of us. Reporters are a lot more willing to accept the idea that the Jays will be rebuilding. I think it comes down to a subtlety of how the last few years of competitiveness have been perceived. For most of us fans, it wasn't just, "Yay, we're winning!" it was, "Yay, things are back to normal!" We weren't just successful, we felt like a real team again. The idea that we could be relegated back to being a have-not in perpetual rebuilding will be hard to take, even if brief periods of success are guaranteed.
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