Great Post, Now I'll Set My Computer On Fire

Of course, I realize people are stupid.  But even given that, I have trouble understanding violence following sports championships.  After the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, two people were shot, two stabbed, 40 arrested, and lots of cars and businesses vandalized.

First of all, let's review the circumstances:

• It's baseball, the least violent major sport.
• It's San Francisco, a wealthy, educated, tolerant city.
• It's their third championship in the past five years.

So if ever a victory was going to result in a big shrug from the winning city, this would be it.  And yet we still saw violence.  On top of that, it's now so expected that if barely even made the news.

The violence-following-championships has gotten so predictable that it's likely a self-fulfilling prophecy now.  If everyone knows that identity-concealing chaos is about to erupt, people will be more likely to act without civility.  A riot is more likely to start if everyone believes a riot is about to start.

Here in Canada, we don't usually riot following one of our teams winning it all.  At least, I don't think we do, it's been so long I don't remember.  But we do trash a city when we lose.  That at least makes some kind of sense, destroying things in anger rather than celebration. But it was, in a way, more embarrassing.  It's one thing to explain to the world that one of your cities burst into violence because of complex psychosocial dynamics.  But we had to explain that one of our cities exploded into violence because we really do get that frustrated over hockey.

Meet The New Champs, Same As The Old Champs

It's a sentiment you often hear when sports journalists talk about the future prospects of traditionally strong teams like the Yankees or Cowboys: (insert sport) is better when (famous, traditionally strong team) is good. Or sometimes they go as far as saying (insert league) needs a strong (famous team). But I've got to ask, is that really true?

The evidence doesn't seem to bear it out. As noted earlier, baseball has faced declining popularity, in spite of nearly twenty years of continuous success for the Yankees. The NFL is doing well despite a long spell of mediocrity for the Cowboys. Hockey's minuscule American popularity is harder to gauge, but here in Canada it's as popular as ever, despite a generation of underwhelming play by the Canadiens and two generations of terrible play by the Leafs. As for the NBA, they experienced just about the biggest boost in popularity any league has ever experienced during the Jordan era, and that was on the back of a team that had little previous success, during which traditionally strong teams like the Celtics and Lakers were unremarkable.

I think the reason for this misguided belief in the need for strong classic teams is that it comes from journalists who are trying to tell stories that put today's events in a larger perspective. Fans and players, on the other hand, live in the moment, so they don't care. A great example was the recent "big three" Miami Heat. When three top players decided to team up to win championships, they didn't have a problem with doing it playing for a team younger than them. And fans didn't need any encouragement to love them or hate them for it, even if the team they are cheering for or against is one their parents or grandparents wouldn't recognize.

Conspicuous Consumption

I live alone, can get to a number of grocery stores easily, and I don't like to plan. This means that I make a large number of small shopping trips, rather than a big weekly trip like most people. The point is that I often shop at irregular intervals, where I buy odd combinations of things I happen to be running out of.

I became conscious of this a few years ago when I got to the checkout and realised that I was buying pickles and ice cream. No, I wasn't pregnant, nor was anyone in my household, I just happened to need those two things.

That purchase seemed to tell an implied story about me, one so economical Ernest Hemingway would be proud of it.  Even if it wasn't really true. So now I often wonder about what people might assume about my purchases. For instance, at the bulk store, I often purchase spaghetti and semi-sweet chocolate. I feel I should reassure them that I won't be having them together.

All this came to mind recently when I made another potentially suspicious purchase.  I'd like to reassure everyone that I just happened to be running low on toilet paper the week before Halloween.  That's the only reason I was buying it.

How Recklessly The Pages Are Filled

I often use CNN's web page.  No, I don't look for news there.  But if I'm having problems with my internet connection, I often use it as a reliable page to load to see if it's working.  Yes, I could use Google, but I often use it, so I can never be sure if it actually downloaded, or if my computer has just reloaded it from it's own memory. 

But today when my connection was being particularly difficult, I loaded CNN, and then realized that I did have one piece of news that I wanted to see: the score of tonight's World Series game.  That's one simple piece of information that lots of people will be looking for, so surely it will be easy to find.  I search through the boxes of headlines in different topics before I find the sports box.  And here's what I find:

Does it have the score? No.  It tells me that I can get a live blog of a couple of sports events that are now over.  It gives me headlines which, when severed from their article, don't mean anything.  It tells me about the PGA president and the Rays' manager, stories that have already been out for 24 hours.  And just to rub it in, it tells me the result of a Spanish soccer match, in a way that most Americans probably wouldn't have understood.  But this is how news gets presented on the Internet in ad-funded sites: an array of fragmentary headlines draw you to click further in to find the info you want. 

I wish postings on the internet could have useful, descriptive headings.  Anyway, thanks for letting me rant, I think that's enough for this post.  Now to think of an obscure song lyric pun to use as the title.

Transparent Campaigns

I've been trying to decide who to vote for in next week's municipal election.  It's a lot more difficult, since there seem to be a lot more candidates.  Elections here have often been the incumbent and a few other candidates who don't seem ready for prime time.  But now there are a lot of candidates who seem quite serious and professional.  So I've been going through newspaper write-ups and candidate web pages trying to make up my mind.

I'm pleasantly surprised that few of them are running on the angry-letter-to-the-editor platform.  That is, most candidate make a token reference to defending the taxpayers' money, but there were no angry tirades about throwing out the bums on the gravy train.  Actually, way more people were highlighting poverty and affordable housing as important issues.

But one trend that I have noticed is that Transparency and Consultation have become extremely overused.  Every candidate makes a big deal about talking to the people, being available, and having meetings open to the public.  Obviously those are all good things, but they're also bland, unquantifiable, safe promises that anyone can make.  They are to municipal politics what a promise of a suggestion box is to student council.

It's weird that at a time when we can barely find the time to vote or read a newspaper, we demand closer interaction with our politicians than ever before.  I make an effort to keep informed about politics, but I don't really feel the need to get any more involved.  I'd be happy to vote for a candidate who's slogan is, don't worry, I'll handle it.

Bragging About Length

I figured I should eventually back up this blog, in case, you know, Google goes bankrupt or something.  So I've cut and pasted all the entries into a word processor file.  Of course, I was also curious as to how much I've written altogether.

The answer is: 354 pages, single spaced. Or in words, 193,632.  Or to put it in terms more people can understand, that's somewhere between Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Or, close to the length of Johnathon Franzen's The Corrections.  I should get around to reading that; maybe it won't feel so intimidating now.

Or, it's around a third of Infinite Jest or War and Peace. Or it's the Bible almost to the end of Judges.  So that's pretty good for a little over two-and-a-half years of part-time writing.  But still, don't expect my Great Canadian Novel soon, unless I go in to NaNoWriMo.

Local Vote, The Cola Wars, I Can't Take It Anymore

We saw a proliferation of newsletters and pamphlets when desktop publishing software and laser printers caused a massive drop in the cost of printing professional documents.  But what technological change made it cost-effective to make dozens of lawn signs for small-town city councillor races?  Did plastic sheets and wooden stakes suddenly become cheaper?

I grew up with the idea that lawn signs for only feature of provincial and federal elections.  (Those of you from big cities might have different experiences.)  But now it seems that all but the least-funded candidates for civic office have them, and even some of the school board trustees.

I have to wonder if they actually work in smaller races. For one thing, there's a much lower voter turn-out. That means that the herd-mentality types that might be swayed by quantities of signs make up a lower portion of the electorate.  Whoever it is that votes in municipal elections manages to withstand letters from cranky taxpayers in the newspaper and re-elect most of the same people each time, so I don't think that a sign on a vacant lot is going to sway them.

Part of the problem is that in elections with parties, we already know all the stances of the candidates, they're just trying to remind you of their presence, the way Coca-Cola keeps advertising even though everyone knows who they are.  But if federal and provincial elections are like the Cola Wars, then municipal elections are like buying small artisan creations: you don't know the brands, you're not even sure what you're buying, and you want to get to know the people behind the product.  So just seeing their name over an over doesn't tell you much.  I wouldn't by a hand-carved sea turtle from someone because I've seen their name lots of places, and I won't put them on city council either.