Man Bites Blog

If you #StandWithPP, you are standing against Pope Francis.

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 16:11:00 +0000

It has been depressing to see my timelines turn from celebrations of Pope Francis to defenses of an organization that does not deny and refuses to get out of the business of dismembering unborn children.

Contrary to what you may have read, the religious leader we have been welcoming the bast week is not a partisan Democrat, and advances some positions that challenge the left as well as the right.

This is apparent if you read Laudato Si, Pope Francis's encyclical on the environment.

As one would expect, the encyclical presents a direct challenge to our aberrantly feeble response to climate change and environmental stewardship in particular.

But it is more than that -- it is a challenge to our basic relationship with Creation, and with each other, particularly the poor and vulnerable. That Creation isn't something we are entitled to exploit as we see fit, but something we are called to care for and pass on to future generations. There are things that will make all of us squirm, not just those who oppose environmental restrictions.

I can think of few better examples of the mindset that Pope Francis is confronting than killing unborn children, and harvesting their organs for our own use.

It is no less hypocritical to celebrate Pope Francis, and the #StandWithPP, then it would be to celebrate him, and then support restrictions on immigration, or oppose environmental restrictions.

A Pan For Security Theatre

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 15:18:00 +0000

I'm reluctant to relate this story, because I am happy that the Holy Father's visit to the US and Philadelphia went so well. I am proud of both the area I grew up in and my faith that has been on display these past few weeks. I'm happy to see the spirit that has reigned here recently, and want to see it continue, and certainly don't want to rain on the parade.

That part of the story is true, but so is my story, and I feel like I need to share it so that it is not repeated for other people.

First, I want to say that nearly everyone we encountered in any kind of official capacity yesterday was extremely helpful and friendly, and carried out their duties with the utmost professionalism. Standouts for me were the Philadelphia police officers we spoke to, the security guard outside the Comcast building, and everyone involved in the PATCO high-speed line transportation between New Jersey and the city. The exceptions were likely at the end of a very long and difficult day. My complaints are not directed at the people in the front lines.

I found out that Pope Francis's visit would coincide with my father's 75th birthday, and decided that would make for a nice combination trip for our family, based in Seattle, that had not visited my family in South Jersey in several years. This meant separate vacations, since my wife was committed to attending her family reunions in Michigan, which it was not possible for her to attend the previous few years as well. We purchased our plane tickets, arranged for make-up school work for my 10 and 11 year old daughters.

We did enjoy the week here, which included a trip to the beach, and birthday party for my father with a number of relatives, and geared up for the big event.

My mother had managed to acquire tickets to the papal mass and the passes for the PATCO trains. We left at 10 am for the 4 pm Mass. As mentioned, the train ride to the city was very smooth, and everyone was in good spirits. We worked our way through Center City to where we were (politely) directed to the checkpoint for ticketed attendees.

We entered the line shortly before 1 PM. Where we would remain for the next four hours, until after the recessional hymn. This involved having to re group out family which had been separated just to get across the street a block from the checkpoint, and then having security personnel threaten to shut down the entry point that we had been waiting to approach for more than four hours.

Reports of the security lines include things like songs, prayers, good spirits, water bottles provided by Wawa, and, while there was disappointment, gratitude to be part, if only peripherally, of such an amazing event.

There is truth to that. But it also involved struggling to keep our family together in a two block If the wait with no access to bathrooms or room to stretch or rest. Our party included my nearly 70 year old mother and my daughter with a chronic illness, and we were probably among the better off groups. As it became apparent we would not get in before the Mass was over, I was overwhelmed with sadness that I had led my mother and daughters on this long pilgrimage that ended at a security line.

If it were only a couple hours, and/or culminated with us getting to participate in at least part of the Mass, it would probably be a brief blip in an overall wonderful day. I understand that this was an event of unprecedented scale, and some unpleasant experiences were inevitable.

Still, I don't think our family's experience was entirely necessary. In particular, I don't think we need to let security concerns dominate events like this to the degree that they do. Nobody wants to be the person who scales back security to find a horrific event, but I think we need to give our leaders permission and space to do that. We need to stop accepting "it's just the world that we live in" as a reason to submit to these things, and accept that almost anything worthwhile will involve some risk. We need to stop handcuffing kids who make clocks. We need to think parents are capable of installing their own car seats (and if they're not, insist on making some that are).

Again, I don't mean to dampen the spirits of those for whom this was a wonderful event, or besmirth the efforts of people who were working hard in a tough situation. But my experience was part of it to, and I think the story needs to be told so we can start working to prevent it from happening again.

Types of Fan Anger

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 21:18:00 +0000

Hearing the Baseball Tonight crew spend 10 minutes taking down the Padres for not managing to sell any of their players at the trade deadline, I was wondering why this was such a big deal, and got thinking of why this, and other things get fans upset.

What follows is a rough hierarchy of what gets fans upset.

Physical Error
Example: Bill Buckner in the 1986 World Series
This is typically fleeting, especially as more sophisticated fans tend to blame management rather than players, as evidenced by my having to go back almost 30 years for a memorable example. Nobody here in Seattle blames Russell Wilson for throwing the interception that ended the Super Bowl, they blame the coaches for calling a pass. (Winning the previous Super Bowl helps). Lots more buzzer beaters are missed than made, but nobody remembers them. For all the talk of how awful Philly fans are, Mitch Williams has been a local celebrity there for years.
Mental Error
Example: GB special teamer trying to field onside kick rather than blocking and allowing Jordy Nelson to field it.
These might sting a little more. We probably couldn't hit a buzzer-beater or a 47 yard field goal, or field a hard-hit grounder down the line, but we'd probably know enough to take a strike when leading off and trailing, or to shoot a 3 when down by 3 with time running out.
Steve Bartman is a special case for this, since it was a mental error by an actual fan.
Lack of Hustle/Courage
Example: Receiver pulling up short on a pass over the middle
This allows us to indulge the notion that if we were there, we'd do better.
The Bad/Questionable Call
Example: Dez Bryant's apparent catch being overturned in the playoff game in Green Bay
These just make you feel helpless, since the game seems to be taken out of the hands of the players and coaches. And replay technology allows us focus on them.
Coaching Blunder / Bad Clock Management
Example: Grady Little leaving Pedro Martinez in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS
As sports fans move from the players' perspective to the coach/GM's perspective, these loom larger. We imagine our team would have surely won if they pursued our preferred strategy.
Bad Trade
Example: See here
These can haunt you for years, especially as the traded away player continues to produce for his new team. As a 76er fan, I've been on the wrong end of almost every kind of bad trade, and it always sucks. The wrong trade can turn a promising team into a laughingstock. (I'm looking at you, Andrew Bynum).
The Non-Trade
Example: Padres above
For the past couple deadlines, my Phillies played the role of the Padres -- the team with no chance to win but tradeable assets that stands pat at the deadline. Rooting for a disappointing team is tough. The one ray is that maybe this can make for a brighter future. It's tough to see that go away.
The other side is the possible contender that is missing a piece but stands pat. Don't these guys want to win?
Injuries
Examples: Everywhere
Injuries are a part of the game. This is the required opening line from the coach or manager in response to every injury. Usually it's hard to get made, unless there is some malaevolence/dirty play from an opponent involved, or some carelessness on somebody's part (Paul George and USA Basketball). But generally, you just have to take it.
Suspensions
Example: Deflategate
Here, not only do you lose a player, but your team gets the stigma of cheaters. If the commissioner is an easy a target as Roger Goodell, then there can be no end to the rage.

To my progressive Catholic and Christian friends...

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 15:51:00 +0000

I have seen your celebrations of the Supreme Court decision establishing same sex marriage, and I wanted to explain why I can't quite join you in them, and talk about how we can move forward together.

--

First, to establish my bona fides...

As you may know, I am on the catechetical team for our parish's Confirmation program for 16 year olds.

Last year, when we were discussing the teachings on sexuality, one of the students expressed dismay that so many people believe the Church is anti-gay when that is not the truth about the Church's teaching.

I responded by noting that we were all Catholics, so what could we do to change that? One of the students said, "Tell them," and I said, "More than that..." and led them to the answer, which is, "Show them!" If people know us, and know that we're Catholic, and see us acting in a loving way toward gay people (and all people for that matter), then the idea that the Church is anti-gay should be ridiculous. I don't think this was particularly out of character for me.

Now, I'm sure I have plenty of room for improvement, in my internal attitudes toward my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, in how I treat them as an individual, and in advocating for justice for them. The same applies to my advocacy for the unborn, against institutional racism, per the Holy Father's recent encyclical, for the preservation of the environment, and many other issues I am blind to. I suspect the Final Judgment will have many uncomfortable moments for us privileged, affluent Americans like me.

But I submit that things like my action above make a greater difference than changing my avatar or any hashtag campaign.

--

From what I can tell, this decision is the result of two trends. One I can celebrate without reservation, the other I cannot.

Increasing acceptance of the equal dignity of gay and lesbian people. This I join you in celebrating with joy.
Erosion of society's vision of marriage. This I cannot celebrate.

For many years, and for may reasons that the gay community has had little or nothing to do with such as no-fault divorce, abortion, contraception and the spiraling wedding industry, heterosexual marriage has moved from a lifelong commitment ensuring that children will, as often as possible, be raised by their mother and father to kind of a graduation or capstone ceremony for adults in loving relationships. Given this, withholding it from same-sex couples did seem to be little more than simple discrimination.

So why resist? Well, I think this has sealed this transition and made it official in a way these other developments have not. It's hard to maintain that marriage is about raising children when we're marrying couples that could not, never could, and never would be able to produce children on their own. Certainly, much of the energy behind the opposition was rooted in hatred and bigotry. But another part is that this was essentially the last stand.

Were there better ways to pursue these goals then opposing same sex marriage? Almost definitely. Which is why I've in past years considered this opposition perhaps correct but imprudent -- it's main effect was causing pain and division. Even so, the happiness at the achievement of dignity for gay people is mixed with some sadness that the Church's rich vision of marriage has been soundly rejected.

And there is concern, too. Perhaps not for "persecution," but for division. For a world where those who believed in this vision of marriage are regarded as bad as segregationists. For rifts in the Body of Christ as people race to take sides and demonstrate that they are on the "right" side.

--

There has been no shortage of advice to traditionalist Catholics on how they should respond to this decision (Executive Summary: Shut up and get over it). So, while I may not be in a position to make ~~demands~~ requests, I offer some suggestions to my more progressive-minded brothers and sisters about how they might help this be an occasion of joy rather than division:

Watch how broad a brush you paint with on the hate/love talk
Yes, there will continue to be hateful people opposed to same sex marriage, and it needs to be confronted. But not all of it, and general comments about "all the hate out there" serve to divide. To be an effective advocate for the unborn, I need to understand that people may oppose legal protections for the unborn for reasons other than hatred of unborn children and happiness at their killing. The same is true here. If you must call out hate, be specific, name names, and cite concrete examples.

Even so, exercise some care. If your statements generally lead people to associate Christianity with hatred, I'm not sure you're doing anyone a favor. Not the person who will never come to hear the Good News because they're convinced the Church is full of haters. And not gay people who think people hate them who actually do not. Is "calling out" a staffer for a state senator from somewhere you've never been really such an imperative?

Have some on the other side not been so careful? Sure. The run-up to the Iraq War was a particular low point in the state of discourse. I would hope that experience would teach people to not want to do that to anyone else rather than provide a model to follow.

The same goes for much of this #loveWins talk. Like all slogans (including "Abortion is murder!" and "pro-life"), it over-simplifies things that complex.
Don't be part of outrage mobs
I think even in writing this post, I am taking a risk that this may impact my career in the tech industry. I'm sure it's nothing compared to the risks gay people have had to take, but it's still something.

This new McCarhyism is one of the worst parts of our culture. Don't be a part of it. And if you're feeling particularly brave, stand up for those being attacked.
Support religious liberty
Yes, I know it's a slogan that's being used by many of your least favorite people. But it is still an important principle, even if it's used by people you don't like. If you think there is any wisdom in the Church's vision of marriage, even if it shouldn't be translated into civil law, there is still value in the Church being allowed to proclaim and teach it.

And things have a way of turning around, and there may come a time when more progressive religious practices are under attack. It will be unfortunate if we've removed "religious liberty" as something of value by then.

I am happy about the equal dignity for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters this decision represents. But yes, this is mixed with some sadness at the death of a robust vision of marriage in our society, and concern for divisions to come.

There are still no shortage of injustices to confront in our world. Of people to evangelize, who desperately need to hear the Good News that God loves them, died for them, and rose and conquered death.

My prayer and hope is that we can work together to do this.

Can there be honorable defeat?

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 21:26:00 +0000

Consider this post an appetizer for my upcoming more comprehensive post on the same sex marriage decision.

I am generally sympathetic, if not downright enthusiastic, toward pleas like Ross Douthat's The Terms of Our Surrender, searching for a path forward where those who opposed (or maybe even stubbornly persist in opposing) same sex marriage can live in a society that has accepted it.

The events in South Carolina fill me with pessimism about this possibility.

It seems like we attempted to give the Conferderacy some level of this, and the results have not been impressive. We didn't execute its leaders as traitors. We allowed the legacy of Confederate generals like Lee, Jackson, and Forrest to grow, even with statues in their honor, while also allowing Grant's legacy to be that of the head of a scandal-filled administration, and Sherman to be cursed. We let them keep their Confederate symbols and nostalgia for the lost cause.

And what did we get for it? A century of Jim Crow segregation and institutional racism that required a heroic Civil Rights movement to overcome. Continued simmering resentment that occasionally bubbles up to the surface in horrific ways like the massacre in the Charleston church. It certainly seems possible that the terms for this surrender were entirely too generous.

So, what does that mean for those opposed to same sex marriage? I can certainly understand the argument that it is a ruinous infection of hatred that must be completely eradicated, rather than allowed to live in the hope that it will remain benign. Those who publicly held these positions must not be allowed positions of leadership. People and businesses who decline to participate in same sex marriages must be punished. Churches and institutions that opposed it must be marginalized.

Much as I may not like to admit it, a good amount of the energy and numbers behind opposition to same sex marriage found its source in anti-gay bigotry rather than firm, deeply held principles about the nature of marriage. This is manifest by the stories of people changing their minds after encountering gay people, and the general state of heterosexual marriage.

Of course, I and many others liked to think I was different. But then many Confederate romanticize-rs protest that their nostalgia is motivated by various noble motives other than an enthusiasm for the subjugation of a race of people to mere property. It just so happens that this was also the prime motivator of its existence, and that every time Confederate nostalgia surfaces, it is accompanied by virulent racism.

So, it may be possible that generous, or even less than total, terms of surrender may not be possible. Any chance for that will be dependent on the losers being worthy of an honorable defeat.

"No concerning results found"

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Tue, 12 May 2015 21:11:00 +0000

This was the heading of the results from one of the many tests Meagan had to undergo to check if she had any lung infections.

My immediate response was, "Concerning for whom?"

While it was true that the tests had not detected any new virulent infections, it did show the same infections we have been dealing with and trying to get rid of for the past several years.

Such is the roller coaster of a Cystic Fibrosis parent. The good news that there is no new reason for concern is mixed with the baseline concern that is always with us.

This drama plays out in a number of ways.

I delight in the wonderful young woman that Meagan is becoming. My heart leaps as I see her enjoying dancing, music, basketball, and her school activities. I am excited to see her learning to be a friend to her classmates and her big sister. I am proud of her accomplishments at school and academic competitions. I am releived to see her taking greater ownership of her treatments and care.

But there is also worry. Why is she so tired some nights? Why does she wake up so early in the morning hungry? Can we let her do this additional activity, or is it not worth the risk? Is she coughing more than she was before? Did I forget a treatment, or needlessly expose her to more risk? Are we striking the right balance between taking this seriously and not letting it run our lives?

This same mix plays out on our hopes for a cure for CF.

There are exciting developments (http://www.thestreet.com/story/13146202/1/vertex-pharma-cystic-fibrosis-fda-advisory-panel-live-blog.html), that have already improved the lives of many CF patients.

But then there are questions. What will happen when this gets out to a wider group? Will insurance companies pay for it? How will we afford it? What don't we know yet?

And so, we come to another Great Strides walk for Cystic Fibrosis. We are aware of the impact the disease has on Meagan, our family, and many other families. We are saddened about those who have been taken away from us or made to suffer from this disease.

But we also celebrate. We celebrate the progress we have made toward a cure. We celebrate the people who have supported us and Meagan through the years -- by walking with us, donating to events like this, your assistance and forebearance with our practical needs, and your prayers and words of encouragement.

We are excited to be able to share this walk this year with my sister's family from North Carolina, with my family that will be walking the same day in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and also sharing the walk day with St. Louis.

I hope you can find a way to join us, either by walking with us, offering your financial support, or your good wishes.

Peace,

John McGuinness

The Official "On the Next Episode" Approved Sentence List...

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 16:24:00 +0000

As many others have noted, the "On the next episode" teasers that play at the end of Mad Men episodes seem calculated to reveal as little of what actually happens on the next episode as possible.

The Man Bites Blog investigative team has uncovered the official white list of sentences that Matt Weiner has approved for inclusion in these teasers:

"Well, hello!"
"Can I get you a drink?"
"Have a seat."
"Close the door"
"What is that?"
"I hate you!" (said by Sally)
"You have no idea who you're dealing with!" (said by Pete)
"This is huge."
"It's a whole new ballgame."
"Well, then."

Both children and adults...

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Sat, 21 Mar 2015 19:01:00 +0000

This piece on the catechesis of confirmaton candidates crossed a couple of my timelines.

As both a parent and a volunteer catechist for the Confirmation program (which is for 16 year olds) here in Washington, I think there are a couple of points worth bearing in mind.

One truth of the article is that catechists should approach their jobs as supporting the students' parents rather than as people rescuing the students from their parents' poor work. This has been the attitude I have tried to cultivate myself, and what I have observed in almost all of the other catechists I've worked with.

As with many other things in our engagement with the world, we need to balance engaging the world as it is with normalizing bad behaviors. It is true that many current Catholic parents are not currently well positioned to fulfill the role of "First Teachers of the faith" that they accepted at their children's baptisms. But does that mean we should base the design of our catechetical programs under the assumption that this will always be the case?

The "pull quote" from the piece is this:

If we have to choose between programs for adults and programs for children, adults are the priority. Not because we don’t care about kids, but because we want what is best for kids.

I'm not certain I agree, unless we have a new vision of what adult faith formation programs look like.

If a parish offers a faith formation program, someone like me probably represents the outside edge of the set of adults who might possibly attend. And even for me, it's probably not likely. I work a full time job at a demanding employer, and am a father and husband. Perhaps I should take my faith seriously enough that I would prioritize attending such a program, bit the reality is that I probably wouldn't.

More to the point, I'm not sure people like me are the ones the Church needs to be investing more effort in.

Now if I, the daily Rosarian, Confirmation catechist, who is bothering to blog about an article on catechesis, is unlikely to attend an adult formation program, how likely is it for the target of this program? The person who has fallen away from the faith, who may have divorced and remarried or be cohabitating, hasn't been to confession in years, attends Mass semi-regularly, but does want her children to be confirmed due to some vestigial attachment to Catholicism.

I don't think offering adult formation classes instead of programs for candidates is likely to bring them back,

What may help is to see this time as an opportunity to evangelize to the parents as well as to the children. To involve them in the process as much as possible. To show them that the Church is there for them to support them in their role as parents.

It has long been my positions that we should offer a "First Teachers" program that runs at the same time as the formation program for teenagers and youth. The problem is that often the youth programs take up all of the parish's facilities that could be used for such a program. My current parish has Eucharistic adoration at the same time as Confirmation class, which is a nice opportunity for the parents, but is probably not the educational program imagined by the article.

On the parent side, I think we are perfectly capable of teaching our kids about the faith. Indeed, I think most of what they hear in faith formation classes are echoes of things they've already heard at home. But it is nice for them to get another perspective, and I want them to know a community of other Catholic peer believers. And it is important for them to know this community is in place as they move through adolescence and young adulthood. This, more than nuts and bolts about the faith, is what they get from these programs.

And, in my judgment, giving our kids this is more important than providing (more) education for motivated adults, if we have to choose.

Mercy is for the weak -- meaning all of us

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 18:08:00 +0000

First, the obligatory clip:

Of course, Pope Francis does teach mercy in his dojo, and has in fact announced a Jubliee Year of Mercy to that effect

To say this is is timely would be an understatement. If there is one thing the world needs now, it is the Mercy of our loving (but still just!) God.

As I've said before, we think we've escaped God's judgment, and all we've really escaped is God's mercy.

I pray for the success of this year, and will strive to do my part to make it so.

Analyzing Hack-A-Jordan

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 19:07:00 +0000

A couple weeks ago I watched an enjoyable game between the Clippers and the Spurs. It was tightly competitive, and featured many great plays from the team's stars.

Except for two stretches -- from 5:00 to 2:00 left in the 2nd and 4th quarter, the Clippers' possessions consisted of one of the Spurs grabbing Jordan, and Jordan proceeding to the free throw line to attempt two free throws, sometimes with ghastly results. #HackAJordan was on.

What had been an athletic competition turned into a psychodrama, with a man who was achieving the peak of his proficiency in all other aspects of the game being forced to confront the one discipline that evaded his mastery.

Given my loathing of anti-competitive video game sports tactics that manipulate the rules, one would think I would hate this, and, viscerally I do. This hits all the notes. Imagine if in baseball, for several innings, it was feasible to intentionally walk every batter until the pitcher came up. This is what Hack-A-Jordan does. It takes the ball out of the hands of the other four players on the court (in this case, including Chris Paul), and puts up a player doing what he does worst. Ugh.

Still, there are mitigating factors, in that there are some counter-measures teams can take.

Hit the damn free throws Reggie Miller was doing the color commentary for this game, and was making this point. Of course, "easy for him to say" is a bit of an understatement. I'm sure Miller worked hard on his game, but I suspect shooting came bit easier to him than it does to Jordan.

Tim Duncan has managed to turn his free throw shooting from a liability to acceptable. But the struggles of Shaquille O'Neal, Wilt Chamberlain, Dwight Howard, and now Jordan lead me to believe that it's not just a matter of effort, and it could be something they're just not good at.
Team Depth This problem has been thrown into relief with the injury to Blake Griffin and Jordan's emergence as an elite player. There is a big drop-off between Jordan and whomever Doc Rivers might play in his place, so he has little choice to leave him on the court.

And maybe that's not such a bad thing. One of the good things about basketball as opposed to other sports like baseball and football is that it defies extreme specialization. A player who is a complete liability on one end of the floor is not playable, especially today when coaches pour over film and find ways to exploit weaknesses. As a National League guy, I enjoy that NBA players must have diverse skill sets.

On the other hand, I'm not sure driving someone like DeAndre Jordan is the type of player we should be driving to the bench.

So, at least in this case, the Clippers' possible counter-measures are not so effective.

One other counter-measure is that when the clock goes down to 2:00 and the rules change so that Hack-A-Jordan is no longer possible, Chris Paul generally plays like a wild animal let out of his cage.

There is also the 6 personal foul limit for individual players. This doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent, since each foul is a stoppage and provides an opportunity to substitute. Teams can have "designated foulers."

So what rule changes could we make?

Same rules all the time It is a bit odd that the rules suddenly change with 2:00 left in the half. The rule in the last 2:00 is that the fouled team can choose the shooter for fouls away from the ball. This would make players like Jordan more playable.
Three For Two In the old days of the NBA, fouled players had three shots to make 2 shots. This would turn the expected number of points for a 40% free throw shooter from 0.8 to 1.14. The problem is that it would mean players like Jordan take more free throws per trip; a bad experience for all involved.
Only call "real" fouls Hack-a-Jordan is typically executed by a player from the opposing team alerting the ref, then walking over and putting his hands on Jordan, often apologizing afterwards. The refs could ignore these "fouls" and only call fouls that are actually physical or impact the game.This would likely result in a number of undesired consequences, people clubbing these players, smashing him on screens, and ensuing fights.

I'd probably fair the first change. But it may not be necessary.

The Anti-Progressiveness of Sports Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Sat, 07 Mar 2015 00:39:00 +0000

I've been finding it interesting that the sports analytic movement, driven as it is by people who I suspect are good liberal Obama voters (if I can judge by the throwaway jokes they sprinkle throughout their pieces), nevertheless leads to conclusions that Rush Limbaugh would cheer.

The "bad contract": I've covered this before, but the time was when a player's best contract would come at the end of his career, perhaps with the team he had toiled for for many years, including his time as an underpaid player without access to free agency.

No longer. Any player rewarded with such a contract is likely to read his name on a regular series of "worst contract" articles ( with GM's name as perhaps an afterthought). GMs and owners who avoid these are no longer considered cheap, but shrewd. We celebrate GMs who win with small payrolls, and discount those who win with high payrolls.

Owners must love this. It's gotten to the point that fans who might question their favorite team making no attempt to win for 2 years are considered unenlightened. It's a great time to be a cheap owner!
Diversity in the Front Office and Announcer's Booth It's interesting that, just as everyone was waking up to the reality that there should be more diversity in the ranks of sports management and commentary, along came a "revolution" that stated that one needed to have particular knowledge (which happened to be possessed by white guys) in order to comment or act intelligently about sports,* and that experience playing the game was largely irrelevant.

This became clear to me in the dispute surrounding Charles Barkley's recent comments. It's odd (perhaps progress?) to see an outspoken African American athlete cast as representing the "old guard." I also notice that popular targets of the analytical revolution include Dusty Baker, Billy King, Art Shell, Denny Green, Barkley, Don Baylor, and Joe Dumars. A popular website for this was called "Fire Joe Morgan," for crying out loud. A look through their darlings reveals a crowd about as diverse as an RNC meeting in Mississippi.
Management > Labor In today's analytic piece, Kirk Goldsberry posits that player performance is largely a function of the system they operate in and laments that marginal players are paid more than the best coaches.
Fat Sluggers > Toolsy Athletes This isn't so much the case now, but before the development of better defensive statistics, sabermetric analysis often favored fats sluggers who drew a lot of walks (e.g. Matt Stairs, Adam Dunn) over players with more diverse and athletic skill sets. (see Adam Dunn vs. Juan Pierre)

It so happened that the former often happened to be white, and the latter often happened to be black and Latino.

This was somewhat countered by the tendency to defend brooding sluggers like Barry Bonds who may have been undervalued because the press didn't like them.

I find this all interesting. I suppose I should salute these analysts for following the data event when it leads to ideologically inconvenient destinations.

* Again, I doubt this is intentional, and I suspect many of the more analytical people would be horrified by the notion that they are pushing minorities out. But it's still interesting to note the effect.

When To Keep Quiet

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Sun, 04 Jan 2015 21:14:00 +0000

Since comments have been shut down on the Scott Alexander post I mentioned the other day, I'll finish up a thread I was on over there, and give it some room to breathe over here.

In the post Alexander writes:

The reason that my better nature thinks that it’s irrelevant whether or not Penny’s experience growing up was better or worse than Aaronson’s: when someone tells you that something you are doing is making their life miserable, you don’t lecture them about how your life is worse, even if it’s true. You STOP DOING IT.

To which Barry Deutsch replied that Alexander's post linking feminism and nerd-shaming is hurtful to him as a feminist, and therefore, by Alexander's own standards, he should stop publishing posts like this. (Trust me, my paraphrase is more charitable than any quotation would be).

Now, while it's difficult for me to sympathize with Deutsch on this matter, I think he does raise a point -- that a simple application of the principle Alexander proposes is untenable.

First, I think we need to quantify what we mean by "making life miserable." In the original post, Alexander describes people struggling with suicidal thoughts and considering chemical castration. It seems this is sufficient to make people reconsider what they're saying. The same is true for suicides by same-sex attracted teenagers.

Deutsch doesn't do a great job describing how Alexander's post makes his life miserable, so I'll try to guess from his comments and general observations.

I can guess that he doesn't like seeing a movement he identifies with associated with bad actions. Well, take it from a pro-lifer -- tough shit, and welcome to the Big Leagues.

It may be that it makes him uncomfortable seeing someone he respects hold something that matters to him in such low regard, leading him to an uncomfortable decision on whether to maintain his respect or his strong association with feminism. Not fun, but again, not something that I think he should be protected from.

Or, it could be a sense the the feminists are the Good Guys, the movement preventing women from being abused by their partners, treated unfairly on the job, and any discouraging word about it means more women get oppressed. This is kind of the Col. Jessup defense, or the current defense of the NYPD, or the defense of the CIA -- you need us on that wall, and unless you're OK with dealing what's on the other side of that wall yourself, don't ask too many questions about what we do up there. As you can probably tell by my examples, I don't find this defense all that convincing either.

But, really, all this gets us to is an argument over what kind of pain is valid and worth addressing, which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place -- the big theme of Alexander's post is that it's wrong to dismiss nerds' pain because it's different than structural oppression.

Being made aware of an evil that you, or a group that you identify with, is complicit in is going to be unpleasant, even with the hope of redemption, This pain may even go to the point of "making life miserable." Taking someone's expression of pain as a binding cue to stop gives a permanent advantage to the status quo, and incentivizes claims of pain. Every policy has winners and losers; the winners would prefer not to be reminded of it. If they can claim that hearing about it is painful for them, and that cry must be respected, then it produces a world where nothing changes. (Again, see the NYPD).

There will always be competing claims of pain, and we will need to find ways to prioritized which ones we address.

The current way we resolve this, at least in many corners of online discourse, is that the least privileged party (or the one speaking on behalf of the lest privileged party) gets to speak, and the more privileged parties are to sit an politely listen, since they've had their turn to speak throughout history. I suppose this is as good as any alternatives, but is not perfect -- in part, because some parties, like the unborn, don't even have the privilege of claiming lack of privilege.

Commentators like Alexander point out these shortcomings, and the hope that we can avoid them by simply following some simple rules of discourse. -- e.g: if someone tells you what you're doing is making them miserable, stop doing it. Be nice to each other. Don't be a jerk. Etc.

I wish this worked, but there is evil in the world. If we leave the field open so that people can get their way by claiming pain, some of them are going to claim pain they don't really feel.

The Legacy of Ryan Lindley

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Sun, 04 Jan 2015 14:42:00 +0000

Yesterday, Ryan Lindley capped off one of the worst months of quarterback play in history with perhaps the worst performance by a quarterback in playoff game history. With him under center, the Cardinals turned from a dominant team to one that couldn't beat a sub .500 team that made several attempts to give the game away.

Most intelligent fans recognize that this isn't really his fault. He was the third string quarterback, and outside of Columbus, most third string quarterbacks are not very good. He was thrown into water over his head, and responded about how one would expect him to.

Still, his name will likely be synonymous with incompetent quarterbacking from now forward, and it seems kind of unfair. If Carson Palmer and Drew Stanton had not gotten hurt, he would have remained pretty much anonymous. His legacy would mainly be his college career. Instead, his name will be a curse word in much of the Southwest.

Sometimes athletes escape the goat horns because the pressure goes to the coach or manager. Michael Wacha had about has bad an inning as he could possibly have in the decisive game in the NLCS against the Giants, but everyone recognized that manager Mike Matheny should have never put him in that position, In this case, it seems that Lindley was the Cardinals' best option. Maybe they could have come up with a game plan that would help him more (as Ohio St. did for Cardale Jones), but their hands were pretty much tied.

I just find it it interesting how quickly and profoundly someone's life can change.

Throwing Out the Baby; Keeping The Bathwater

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 19:30:00 +0000

Reading this Scott Alexander post on the nerd-shaming strand of feminism (which I can stand behind close to 97% of), I was struck by this passage from Scott Aaronson about the depths to which his lack of romantic success coupled with feminist indoctrination plunged him:

At one point, I actually begged a psychiatrist to prescribe drugs that would chemically castrate me (I had researched which ones), because a life of mathematical asceticism was the only future that I could imagine for myself. The psychiatrist refused to prescribe them, but he also couldn’t suggest any alternative: my case genuinely stumped him.

And I thought to myself -- how did I avoid a similar fate?

I certainly had my dark moments. I certainly got my share of indoctrination. I could fairly be described as a "nerd." I am generally sensitive to other people's pain, and wouldn't want to cause any, and can identify with Aaronson's desire not to be a creep or scare people off.

But I never got near the point where I considered myself a menace and chemical castration was the only response.

Why?

Some possibilities:

While I am "nerdy," I was probably not an exact match for the stereotype. I enjoyed both watching and playing sports (though I was never very athletic). I usually had a sense of proper dress and fashion, and was willing to conform. I didn't get a lot of female attention, but it was non-zero.
It's possible by sex drive is/was not as strong for me as for others. I could generally be in the presence of a girl/woman I was attracted to without being consumed by a desire to kiss her.

But, I think the main reason was my Faith. That I was part of a faith tradition and community that told me I was created good, loved and saved by God, and that even my sexuality was good, regardless of what the rest of the world said.

Perhaps this stuck out to me because I had just finished this Joseph Bottum piece on how our politics may have shed explicit grounding in religion, but maintain a sensibility formed by our religious tradition, resulting in conviction of sin, but no means to escape the prison it puts us in.

I'm pretty sure none of the people taking place in the above conversation would describe themselves as religious people, and likely hold religion in disdain. But that apparently has not not stopped them from retaining some of the worst artifacts of religion -- scruples, the notion that they are irredeemably bad, that sex and sexuality are bad and dirty, the notion that there can only be one suffering which we are destined to endure in private.

Often, we need to fight the temptation to celebrate Easter Sunday without observing Good Friday. I get the sense that Aaronson is getting Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but missing Christmas and Easter (the baby I refer to in the title can be quite literal). People are living with guilt, with their own sinfulness without any knowledge or hope of being set free.

I literally cannot imagine what it must be like to bear the notion that all your desires are wrong without the the underlying faith that you were created fundamentally good, so good that God cam in into the world, lived, suffered, and died to save you.

Perhaps, living with this faith is the greatest "privilege" of all. Evangelization is spreading this Good News to all so we can all live in it and enjoy it.

Is life with this faith always a bed of roses and free of suffering? Certainly not. But it sure beats suffering without hope.

Stop trying to find the perfect case

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Sun, 07 Dec 2014 06:57:00 +0000

The breakdown of the UVA fraternity gang rape story adds another aspect to my earlier point about flawed cases.

I'm not going to turn this into a discussion of ethics in rape journalism (though another post in the near future will discuss some aspects of journalism). For the purpose of this article, we'll stipulate that the truth is that the fraternity boys behaved more honorably than the article made out (with "better than gang rapists" being a ridiculously low bar to clear), and that perhaps "Jackie" behaved less honorably than the innocent victim of the article.

Obviously, lying is wrong, and reporters passing on lies without checking them out is wrong. What's interesting is why they felt the need to do so.

It seems likely the truth is bad enough. It's likely something bad happened to "Jackie" at the hands of some men at the University of Virginia. Maybe not as obviously criminal as a vicious gang rape, but something that it would be have been better to prevent from happening.

But we won't tolerate that. Our victims must be purely innocent; our perpetrators must be purely evil. We want to believe that all our problems can be solved just by being a little meaner to bad people, and it's cost-free to everyone else.

Here's another less severe example of this playing out. This exchange crossed my timeline multiple times:

the internet pic.twitter.com/dZeMzPEUE8
— Christopher Mims (@mims) December 7, 2014

A perfect storm! Here we have a dude trying to "mansplain" to a woman what an article about attracting women to the tech workforce means. Only to find out he was addressing the author of the actual article! It probably never even occurred to him that the author of the article could be a woman! Hoisted on his own condescending misogynist petard!

Alas, the truth is a little more complicated:

@gretared @caseyjohnston hi, I meant "I read the article", not "go read the article". Omitted the "I" for space & didn't proof-read enough.
— Tomas Sancio (@tsancio) December 6, 2014

A look through his timeline with anything approaching an open mind makes this explanation the most likely.

To be clear, I'm blaming Casey Johnston for misreading and providing a correction. Seems like a 50/50 parse. I'm more critical of the mob of commentators on Twitter who spent the day dancing on this "epic burn" that turned out to be undeserved.

Ironically, these critics were guilty of the very crime they were accusing Mr. Sancio of -- sending out a judgment without familiarizing themselves with the necessary context.

Add in that Mr. Sancio is not a native English speaker, and what was the celebration of an righteous burn of a misogynist know-it-all is something a bit darker.

Does this mean that there are no problems with how men treat women in professional technical settings? No, any more than the problems with the UVA gang rape story mean that there isn't a problem with campus rape and sexual assault.

But it might mean that the problem isn't as simple as clueless misogynist assholes running around. And the solution might be more complicated than punishing them.

This is reality. I don't think every member of the grand jury in the Michael Brown case or the Eric Garner case is a raving bigot who thinks that black lives don't matter. I'm not even sure the police officers who killed them are. But they were parts of a system that failed to deliver justice.

And that may be the scary part. Working on these systems so they can deliver something more just will be, in short, a real pain in the ass. It's not a matter of passing around videos of TV comedians completely nailing someone or something, or tweeting hashtags, or calling bigots out. It will take a lot of tedious, grinding work. It will likely make life more difficult for people who have done little or nothing wrong. It may give breaks to people who aren't entirely innocent and may not deserve it.

As a pro-lifer, these are lessons I've had to absorb. It sure would be convenient if every abortion were a frivolous and a matter of personal convenience from couples wanting to maintain a certain lifestyle. But we all know that's not the case. Many abortions come from truly desperate circumstances, and restricting abortion will impose very real costs on these people. Going around calling abortionists and those who procure their services names isn't going to accomplish much, since almost everyone will recognize it as not just unkind but untrue. Instead, we need to acknowledge the pain, but make the case the ending the killing of the unborn is worth the price.

And the same applies to other causes. Because the current results are not acceptable. We can't go on with more black men being killed by police officers. We can't have young women going to college and coming out scarred by bad sexual encounters.

And what we've been doing isn't working.

Numbers...

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 05:11:00 +0000

A representative from the company that makes Meagan's therapy vest came by the house tonight. One thing they did was press some buttons on the machine to see how many hours it had run since we started with it in 2008, bringing up the display above. The number was 2199 hours. Roughly the amount of time someone would spend at a full-time job in a year.

This number represents an investment -- from Meagan, from Kristin, and from Katherine and me in Meagan's health. For more than 2000 hours, Meagan has sat with a vest vibrating her lungs to shake her up. Each session is about half an hour, so this means shes has done this about 4000 times. While she is almost always very cooperative, this is almost always at the request or reminder from Kristin and myself. Almost all of these sesssions are accompanied by one to three nebulized medications.

In this time of Thanksgiving, we are thankful that this and other treatments have helped keep Meagan clear of more serious impacts of Cystic FIbrosis. And that, we are on the verge of treatments that will help Meagan and others be free from both these symptoms and these hours of treatments.

This Thursday, December 4, I will be doing my own treatment, taking part in the 26th annual Stair Climb for Cystic FIbrosis. I will climb 56 floors, 1120 steps, about half the number of hours Meagan has logged on her vest machine.

I invite you to support me, by climbing with me, supporting me financially (perhaps $1/floor?), or your continued thoughts and prayers.

We wish you all a peaceful and joyful Christmas season.

John McGuinness

BTW: If you have questions about the recent announcement of the CFF's transaction on the royalties for Vertex medications, I tried to address those here: http://johnmcg.blogspot.com/2014/11/faq-regarding-cffs-recent-transaction.html

The Virtue of an Imperfect Case

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 04:45:00 +0000

John McWhorter writes that because the Ferguson case is not a clear-cut case of police brutality, it is not the best case to highlight the problems of the relationships between law enforcement and minorities.

I disagree.

Not because I differ with Mr. McWhorter on the facts of the case, but because I think it is precisely this case's resistance to being cast as a simple case of an evil racist cop killing a perfectly innocent young black man that makes it a useful case to examine.

Unfortunately, it's not so simple. The problem isn't so much the actions of Darren Wilson during the stop (or the actions of Micheal Brown, but the confluence of factors that brought them together that day in emotional states such that this outcome was in play.

If it were a simple case of a rogue cop, the solution would be easy -- punish him, and try not to hire more cops like him. If the criminal justice system failed to do so in the face of these facts, then that's a bigger, thought somewhat more manageable problem.

But that doesn't seem to be what's going on. It appears that Officer Wilson acted within the parameters of his job. And still, a man who didn't deserve to die was killed. That's a more difficult problem.

I wonder if some of the rage at the grand jury decision is that it denies us the simple scapegoat and the easy way out. The statement is, "No, you're not going to get out of this just by punishing Darren Wilson. You're going to have to work on all the things that led these two people to where they were that afternoon."

I get the frustration that a young man can be killed with nobody held responsible. And expanding the zone of culpability can at times be a way to dodge personal responsibility and culpability.

Still, I think we need to absorb different lessons than, "Darren Wilson was a bad cop." And if it turns out he wasn't such a bad cop, I think that helps us ask the bigger questions.

FAQ Regarding The CFF's Recent Transaction

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 23:06:00 +0000

Judging by the comment thread here and other discussions I've seen online, there are some questions regarding the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's recent announcement of selling its royalty rights to CF treatments developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals for $3.3 billion.

Since I regularly (including now) ask other people to join me in supporting the CFF, I thought I would share how I see things. What follows is what my impressions are as a reasonably well-informed CF dad and CFF fundraiser. While I'm doing my best to avoid any factual errors, I did not conduct any research for this other than reading the linked articles. It may be necessary for me to revise this in light of some errors or omissions.

These answers are my own, and I do not speak for any of the pertinent organizations.

So, what's the deal?

Essentially, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation provided Vertex with funds in exchange for royalty rights in any treatments that are developed with those funds.

In that time, Vertex has developed Kalydeco, which shows great promise in addressing a somewhat rare mutation of Cystic Fibrosis, and in combination with some other drugs, in treating the most common mutation of CF, which is what my daughter has. This last treatment is working its way through FDA approval now.

CFF has elected to sell its claim on the royalties to Royalty Phamra for $3.3 billion.

Mutation?? Maybe you can give me a brief primer on Cystic Fibrosis.

Sure.

Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic disease. In order for a child to have CF, both her parents must be carriers of the gene mutation. If that is the case, any child of that couple would have a 25% chance of having the disease, a 50% chance of being a symptom-free carrier, and a 25% chance of not even being a carrier.

Within CF, there are various mutations, with D508 being the most common.

This mutation effects the way that cells absorb and process salt (the initially most apparent symptom is skin that is salty to the taste, and CF has been diagnosed via testing the salt content of the patient's perspiration -- the "sweat test.").

This causes a number of symptoms, most notably trouble in digesting fats and a thick mucous in the lungs that can very easily attract infections. CF patients often have trouble gaining weight, leaving them weak to fight the infections, which is why the disease has been so deadly.

Advances in treatments over the past half century have raised the median survival age of CF patients from elementary school to approaching middle age. These treatments attack the symptoms (antibiotics and breathing treatments for respiratory problems, enzymes for digestive problems).

There is particular excitement about the treatments recently developed by Vertex because they attack the root of the problem at the cell level.

OK. When I gave money to CFF, I thought I was donating to find a cure, not help the foundation play in the stock market with Big Pharma. What gives?

Some time ago, the CFF adopted a strategy of partnering with certain drug companies to develop CF treatments. They deemed this necessary for a couple of reasons:

The development of these treatments is largely a hit-and-miss proposition. Years and years of expensive research can come up with nothing. There is a tremendous potential downside in performing this type of research, and the downside is more likely that any upside.
The patient population of CF is limited. There are about 30,000 CF patients in the US, and they have may different types of mutations.

Because of these factors, the CFF wanted to provide an incentive for drug companies to devote their resources to CF research, and this partnership is a way for them to do so.

Isn't CFF a non-profit? How can it be involved in these big-money financial transactions?

"Non-profit" is a tax designation meaning that the company re-invests all revenue back into its mission. It does not mean that it does not get involved in finances or even that it has an altruistic mission. When I started working at MasterCard in 2000, it was a non-profit. So is another one of my former employers, BJC Healthcare, the largest St. Louis-based employer.

So, there isn't any inconsistency with the CFF being involved in this type of transaction and its non-profit status.

More to the spirit of the question, I don't believe anyone at CFF will be buying a mansion or a boat as a result of this deal. The funds will be re-invested in treatments to benefit CF patients and families. I and others will be watching to ensure this is the case.

Ok, but the treatments Vertex is developing cost upward of $300,000 a year. Shouldn't the CFF be using its influence to lower the price and ensure access rather then sharing in the profits from gouging needy CF patients?

The high price reflects some of the dynamics I mention above -- it is not for the manufacture of the actual pills but for the immense about of research that went into developing this treatment, as well as other research avenues that were not so fruitful. I'm not an expert in the economics of drug development, but it does not strike me as unfair that Vertex and other companies would receive some profit for their work in developing life-saving cures.

I've been blessed and lucky enough in my life to be well compensated for work that is much less obviously beneficial. Part of this compensation has been access to health plans that have covered a very large portion of the costs of Meagan's treatments and medications. I hope that these upcoming treatments will not be an exception.

It is my understanding from the announcement that the CFF will be using some of these funds to ensure that CF families less fortunate than ours have access to a variety of CF treatments.

Does this mean we are at "Mission Accomplished?" Can we stop now?

If only.

Kalydeco by itself only treats a relatively rare form of CF. The new combination looks promising, but is far from a slam dunk.

And this will still leave many other untreatedmutations, and this treatment will require a daily medication, with the aforementioned price tag.

CFF's goal is a one-time treatment that will address all the symptoms of CF. We are, unfortunately, still very far from that goal.

OK, if the CFF just brought in $3.3 billion, why should I donate to them instead of some other disease? Or my local food bank? Or my church? Or my favorite political cause? Or my neighbor who just lost his job? Or the needs of my family?

How we choose to spend the limited money we have available for charitable donations like this is an obviously very personal decision.

Particularly at this time of year, the number of worthy causes asking for our donations can be overwhelming. I know that I personally pass on more opportunities to donate than I accept.

My aim here is to lay out why I believe that there is still work and progress to be made in finding a cure for Cystic Fibrosis, and why I continue to trust the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to do it.

If you have reached a different conclusion, or you feel called to direct your generosity in a different direction, I certainly understand that.

Regardless, I am thankful for the many ways people have supported Meagan and our family through CF, whether it be financial contributions to CFF, showing up at events, practical assistance and forbearance for our practical needs, or kind words and prayers for Meagan and all of us.

It's Not Really About Ethics in Sports Journalism

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 00:46:00 +0000

Robert Lipsyte, ESPN's departing ombudsman takes some "parting shots" (to borrow a term from ESPN's venerable Sports Reporters about ESPN's place in sports journalism.

Lipsyte begins by discussing the coverage (or lack thereof) of the various controversies surrounding Jameis Winston and the Florida State program during College GameDay's recent visit there:

“GameDay” was recently in Tallahassee, Florida,, with the best college quarterback in the country, Florida State’s Jameis Winston, having been accused at various times of sexual assault, robbery, autograph peddling and inappropriate campus conduct. Fowler and Herbstreit smoothly affirmed our right to enjoy the show without the angst of moral judgment on college sports.
Hey, it’s “GameDay.” Leave the heavy breathing to “Outside the Lines” (if you can find it).

I suspect most viewers were fine with this. This is a show whose signature feature is one of the panelists donning an oversize hat or mask for the team he predicts to win that day's game. It's where Katy Perry says she wants a quarterback to call her. Not many are tuning in for a grim report on the NCAA, player contact, and ethics,

Lipsyte then oddly pivots from there to a defense of ESPN's suspension of Bill Simmons for calling Roger Goodell a "liar" on his podcast.

To put my cards on the table:

I have been a fan of Simmons since his pre-ESPN days. That doesn't mean I agree with everything he writes, or all of his digressions, but I admire how he has blazed his own path to his current place in the sports commentariat.
I found (and continue to find) his focus on the evils of Roger Goodell annoying. I don't particularly care of the NFL commissioner is a liar, or when he ad the tape, and that in some ways he has become a scapegoat (which is not to say he's innocent, but we seem to think that trashing him is sufficient to demonstrate that one is confronting domestic violence). This doesn't mean I think he should have been suspended for it, just that I would have preferred he write and talk about something else.
In short, I think Simmons is probably right that Goodell is lying, but I don't really care.

The utterance occurred during the weekly "guess the lines" podcast with "Cousin" Sal Iacono. Regular features of this podcast include:

Simmons and Sal each guess what the betting line is for each upcoming NFL game. And the one who wins the most weeks wins the year long contest for a consequence that has never been paid off.
Sal imitates Simmons in a voice mail where Simmons is typically gushing over whomever his current favorite NFL QB is.
They criticize the scheduling and announce paring assignments for the games in the voices of Mike Francesca and Chris (Mad Dog) Russo.
Simmons does an imitation of Andrew Luck describing the Colts' most recent performance.
Sal promoting that week's Jimmy Kimmel guests.

Expressing surprise that something stated here doesn't meet journalistic standards is in line with being shocked to find gambling is Cassablanca. Yet Lipsyte seems surprised.

Simmons's second most frequent podcast guest is his college buddy John "Jack-O" O'Connell. Almost every one of their podcasts include baseless speculation about almost every prominent New York and Boston athlete (Simmons started as the "Boston Sports Guy;" Jack-O is a Yankees fan) being a PED user.*

Now, calling someone a liar is not very nice, but does not bring about any real-world consequences. Using PEDs is against the rules of all sports, and many athletes are on the outside of the Hall of Fame because of either confirmed PED use, rumors of PED use, or happening to have their career coincide with suspected widespread PED use. This is serious stuff.

Yet, ESPN never intervened. Only when Simmons made unsupported statements about the commissioner one of their business partners (and yes, dared ESPN management to discipline him for it) did they discover their journalistic principles.

This quote from Sandy Padwe that Lipsyte included is revealing in a way that Lipsyte probably did not intend:

“Journalism is important to ESPN when it needs it,” he said, “meaning when critics look at the whole product and wonder why it seems 99 percent of the daily report is devoted to noise and the current name of the moment. Then the network points to 'Outside the Lines' or some of the recent reporting on Roger Goodell.

In this case, ESPN needed a pretext to keep one of its employees in line, and all of a sudden we're supposed to believe property that features Coors Light Cold Hard Facts (that are really opinions), "C'mon Man!", Frank Caliendo's impressions, Chris Berman's whole schtick, and the rest of Simmons's podcasts is some kind of Serious Journalistic Enterprise.

I don't think ESPN can have it both ways (as I suspect will soon become explicitly apparent).

What I think is really going on, and is also in part what the Goodell controversy is about, is whether we need the middlemen between talented people and their audience.

Lipsyte also wrote:

This is immediately tricky because Simmons sometimes acts like a journalist, or at least seems to want to be taken seriously. If he were starring on BillSimmons.com or his own version of Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show,” that split personality might work. But the site is owned by ESPN, and house rules always apply. If you call a subject a liar on ESPN, you better have definitive proof.

...

The audience loves Simmons just the way he seems to be -- unfettered and willing to speak his version of truth to power. But Simmons is speaking from a somewhat protected place. It’s a little like being at home and shouting out the window.
As a rising son in ESPN’s booming growth this past decade, Simmons was allowed to find the reach of his talents by testing the boundaries of his gilded cage.

This elides the fact that Simmons built his audience and craft on his own (and likely could do so again).

Now, I think the ESPN-Simmons partnership has been and continues to be beneficial to Simmons. It's unlikely he would be producing documentaries, sitting in the studio for NBA broadcasts, promoting his favorite directors and writers, or (ahem) hosting podcasts without the support of the ESPN empire.

Likewise, it's obvious the NFL owners (of which Goodell is a figurehead and proxy) provides substantial infrastructure for the athletes to showcase their talents. But how necessary are they, really? And is it possible that in some cases (Donald Sterling being an obvious example) they do more harm than good?

Are we moving toward a world where talented people like Simmons and LeBron James can showcase their talents free from these "middle-aged racist white guys in suits?"

What I think we saw is ESPN's last grasp at saying, "No." We;ll see if they're right.

* Simmons's sanctimony about player safety (another of his anti-Goodell hobbyhorses) is undermined by his treatment of PED use as a handy weapon in friendly disputes with fans of rival teams (yeah, the Yankees beat the Red Sox, but half of them are cheaters!) rather than a serious issue of player safety.

Natural rivalries

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 20:43:00 +0000

Around last week's Cowboys-Texans game, there was some talk that they (and other "natural rivals" in opposite conferences, should play more often than the every 4 years the NFL scheduling algorithm dictates.

Let's see how this might work.

The Rivalries

No-brainers

Some of the rivalries jump off the page as obvious:

Jets-Giants
Steelers-Eagles
Ravens-Redskins
Bucs-Dolphins
Chiefs-Rams
Raiders-49ers
Cowboys-Texans

Marriages of Convenience

There's some other parings that look workable, even if they don't scream "rivalry."

Jaguars-Falcons
Saints-Titans
Chargers-Cardinals
Seahawks-Broncos
Browns-Lions

The oddballs

This leaves the Panthers, Bears, Packers, and Vikings in the NFC, and the Patriots, Bills, Colts, and Bengals in the AFC.

For these teams, I don't see any pairing or scheme that would be much better than alternatives.

The Schedule

This is where things get dicy.

The current NFL schedule sets up great -- 2 games against the rest of the division, 1 game against one conference division, and one opposite conference division, and a game against the teams that finished in the same place in the other 2 in-conference divisions.

We could just add this game, but sometimes it appears that 16 games it too many. Also, this would result in an odd number of games, meaning some teams would have more home games than away games (and vice versa). There are ways to mitigate this -- have all the rivalry games hosted by the same conference each year so the disparity doesn't unfairly advantage one team in the playoff race, make the extra road game the first tiebreaker, etc. Also, you could have some games at neutral sites -- Eagles-Steelers in Happy Valley, Chiefs/Rams in Colombia, and some of the games would effectively be neutral sites anyway.

Or we could taketh away. The games against the same finishers in other divisions looks like the best target, but that is part of how the league ensures parity, and those are often marquee match-ups (it's why there has been an annual Peyton Manning vs. Patriots game).

Speaking of parity, this presents another problem. Since baseball put a similar scheme in place for interleague rivalries, the Cardinals have been up and the Royals (generally) have been down. An annual home-and-home with the Royals has been a boon to them, especially with their rivals playing tougher competition. A scheme where the 49ers have an annual game with the Raiders while the rest of their division faces tougher competition may not work in a league where every game counts as much as the NFL.

Conclusion

It might be fun to have annual Giants-Jets and Cowboys-Texans games, but it's probably nor worth it if it would also mean an annual Vikings-Bills game and messing up competitive balance.

Who cares what I think?

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 05:41:00 +0000

Reading Kathy Sierra's account of her terrorization at the hands of members of the tech community, it's hard not to be moved to action.

But what should that action look like? And how can it be effective?

On the one hand, I am a member of the "tech community," in so far that I am a professional software engineer at one of the leading technology companies. I own one of Sierra's books. I have an active Twitter account and have participated in software forums.

On the other hand, I am not remotely part of the community that engaged in these acts of terrorism. I did not see them when they happened, I am not familiar with the people involved. I'm not a gamer, other than simple games on my smartphone and the same 8-bit Nintendo games I played as a kid on my daughters' Wii. I did not even know what doxxing was until I read the article, and even now only know enough about it to know I don't want to know anymore.

When I encounter this type of unpleasantness (as I have seen on the edges of the "manosphere" I've been exposed to), I back away (perhaps I shouldn't???)

So, would any criticism I make be that of an insider engaging in some internal soul-searching, or one more outsider persecuting an oppressed minority?

--

My thoughts on this were crystallized in a Scott Alexander post that I thought did a great job of laying out how we've managed to create a culture where people spend almost all their energy talking about the evilness of the other and also claim the mantle of tolerance.

I found myself nodding along. Yes! This is a precise description of what's going on!

But then he closes with this:

This essay is bad and I should feel bad.
I should feel bad because I made exactly the mistake I am trying to warn everyone else about, and it wasn’t until I was almost done that I noticed..

And I wanted to shout, "No! You're not engaging in tribalism! You're offering a well thought-out necessary critique!"

But I wonder, is it possible to offer a criticism of your own group while maintaining solidarity with it?

Politically, I have almost nothing in common with Scott Alexander. I am a pro-life traditionalist minded married same-sex-marriage-skeptic Catholic. He is (I think) a polyamorist pro-choice atheist.

But did I only agree with him because we are, in some sense, part of the same tribe -- i.e. skeptics of culturally elite opinion? Were his arguments compelling, or was it just a matter of, "Go team!" (or "Boo the other team!")

Of course you see this all the time, Nobody says that the problem with groups they are a part of is that they contain too many people like themselves. So much of what passes for political commentary is merely signaling what tribe the writer is in (or not in). It's increasingly difficult to imagine someone previously disposed to disagree being convinced by most essays.

This is particularly true of the Catholic Church today, especially as the strength of its claim on its members loyalty weakens. When Catholics offer critiques of the Church, what they are usually doing is critiquing other factions of the Church.

Which I think is why I find confessions of collective guilt so annoying. It seems to me that the confessor is confessing on behalf of rival factions rather than himself. There doesn't seem to be any response of repentance by the confessor himself to this conviction.

---

I think there is a notion in feminist circles that crimes like the terrorization of Kathy Sierra, rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence are simply masculine cultures taken one extra step. That mainstream male culture tolerates this type of thing, and a promising way to reduce these crimes is for these cultures to stop providing a safe harbor for these type of activities.

This does not track with my experience.

I have never been a part of any community of men where anyone would feel comfortable sharing a story, or even joking about, laying a hand on his wife and children, or having a sexual encounter where consent was iffy, or committing adultery. In fact, the cultures I've been a part of don't even tolerate mundane complaints about women's appearance, cooking, housework, etc. Everyone "married way up," etc.

Reading Sierra's article, I wondered how or why anyone would want to do the things these people were doing to another human being.

And I think this may explain some of the defensiveness we sometimes have in the face of this. Sure, I may not have perpetrated the harassment, but I'm part of the tech culture where this blooms.

And I have to say, I don't really think I am. Posting something on a support forum for epileptics designed to cause a seizure (or celebrating the same) isn't an extra half-turn on the screw of the tech culture I know; it's not even the same activity.

Entreating me to (further) sand down whatever edges remain in my personality in order to solve this is both unfair to me* and counterproductive.

As is teaching men like me "not to rape" and lecturing me about domestic violence.

--

So, the "good" news is that most of tech culture neither perpetrates nor tolerates this type of activity.

The bad news is that it's a big enough subculture to drive away Kathy Sierra and likely many others who held themselves back. And the Internet is helping them find and feed each other.

So, what to do about it? Well, I could "stand with" and "raise awareness:"

I stand with @seriouspony
— Martin Fowler (@martinfowler) October 8, 2014

But this strikes me as little more than tribal signaling. But maybe, if I don't know what to do, I can reach someone with better ideas.

As Ms. Sierra notes, these subcultures thrive on the notion that they are a persecuted minority that is speaking hard truths the rest of the world can't handle. Wouldn't criticism from someone like me only further feed this?

--

We do have a serious problem. Some bitter subgroups are effectively blocking access to the highest reaches of the tech world. This is bad now, and I certainly have an interest in shutting them down before by daughters could experience anything like this.

But I don't know that the current solutions offer much hope of success.

But then, they're better than anything I've come up with.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* I am well aware that my feelings of being unfairly accused, as well as my Hamlet-like dithering about what to do, are several orders of magnitude less severe than the problems Kathy Sierra and other female writers are dealing with. I am trying to sort out how I can be most effective in combating the latter.

Levels of Protection

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 17:03:00 +0000

Note: Since this topic comes pretty close to my professional interest, I want to emphasize that these are my own thoughts on this issue, not a reflection of my employer's policies or attitudes.

There's been some discussion of the leaking of photos of celebrities that those celebrities would have rather not released. The consensus seems to be that the main culprit is lax security policies by Apple and other "cloud" providers. But I think there's another way of thinking about it.

99.9% of the photos stored in the cloud are worthless to everybody except the owner of those photos. Nobody outside of my family is itching to see my daughter's baby pictures.

As such, it does not require a high level of security, and I would be annoyed if I had to pay for it, either explicitly with money or by enduring some form of security theater every time I wanted to grab a picture from a past Great Strides Walk. I'd also be annoyed if my pictures were lost, or if someone I didn't know got their hands on them, but my primary concerns are accessibility, ease of use, and price. I suspect this is the case for the vast majority of customers, perhaps including celebrities.

It's similar to a coat check at a restaurant. I want them to take care of my jacket and make sure nobody leaves with my jacket. But I also don't want to see an armed guard there, wouldn't be willing to pay a very high price for a more secure service, and I would be more annoyed than relieved if I had to go to great lengths to prove that my jacket was actually mine.

Enter the celebrity photos.

Now, all of a sudden, a service designed for accessibility, convenience and low cost is the guardian of something that others value very highly. Now, the service is hosting something that the owner would very much like to keep from other people, and other people (unfortunately) are willing to make a concerted effort to get.

And the service providers don't know (or shouldn't know) that this has occurred. To them, the celebrity photo is indistinguishable from the picture I took of my daughter's camp.

To use my analogy, it would be similar to putting $1000 of cash in the pocket of my jacket, giving it to the coat check.

Which is why I think this misses the point:

I’ve never heard anyone respond to financial hacking by saying, Just don’t use online banking. That’s what you get for using credit cards.
— Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) September 1, 2014

Sure, this will score some PC points about victim blaming, and of course the primary responsibility for these leaks lies with the people who hacked into the accounts. And, the commentary I have seen doesn't say that the victims deserved to be hacked, but that some prudence could have prevented the situation.

But in general, photos are a completely different type of data than photos. I have to share my credit card with an online retailer in order to do business with them, and them securely managing that data is an implicit (sometimes explicit) requirement of the contract.

It would be unwise for me to leave my wallet in a jacket I checked, because the service is not designed to secure things that are valuable. If someone steals it, they are responsible, but anger at the coat check service would be misdirected.

Nothing about using a photo cloud service implies that I post very sensitive photos there. And almost all users don't, and indeed couldn't if they wanted to.

Is it reasonable to expect these services to ratchet up their security to account for these cases? Should the rest of us have to pay for it either with inconvenience or currency?

I don't think so, but perhaps there's a better way, and figuring things like this out is what they pay us to do.

My Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 01:36:00 +0000

I’ve been challenged for the ice bucket challenge. In my judgement, at this point, the campaign has run its course, and for me to post a video would be mostly about drawing attention to myself versus those with ALS and other diseases.

There has been some debate about the effectiveness of this campaign. What is undeniable is that it has drawn our attention to those impacted by this terrible disease, and raised much more money for research to find an end to it. Anyone with a casual knowledge of my Facebook feed knows I am not above using events and physical acts to raise money for research to end diseases. I salute those who have taken part, and think they should feel good about what they’ve done.

Nevertheless, it’s always a bit disappointing that many of us wait for campaigns like this, or for disasters to strike, or for a political or cultural spat, to give to those who are suffering. My heart has been very heavy lately -- with some deaths in the family, with injustice and unrest in the city I called home for 15 years, with violence and warfare breaking out throughout the world. I think we are called to always keep those who are suffering in mind, and to do what we can to help them. I know that I often fall short of this goal, and suspect I am not alone.

So, in honor of this, I am making three small donations, which may not be large but I hope to repeat several times:

To the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, in honor of my recently deceased Great Aunt Eileen Cooney
To the MS Society, in honor of the consistent and inspiring efforts of Rick Keating on behalf of his wife Michelle.
To the ALS Association (with a request that it be used for non-embryonic research) in honor of Carle Lacouture, father of my childhood friend Michael.

And my challenge, to myself and the rest of you, is to find a way in our daily routines to keep those who are suffering in our minds, and to use whatever influence we have to remind each other of those we may prefer to forget about, and to do what we can to help them.

Thanks For Supporting My Cycle For Life!

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 03:34:00 +0000

The Cycle For Life was a great day!

The ride raised more than $100,000 for Cystic Fibrosis Research.
I raised nearly $1,000
I got to ride with great team members, Tan and Hristo from Amazon.
Kristin and the girls worked an *awesome* rest stop for the 65 mile ride.

I was able to complete the 20 mile ride with no problems for either myself or the bike. Maybe I should aim for 65 next year?
It was a gorgeous day and a fun party afterwards.

Thanks for being a part of it -- the support from so many people from all over the country and different parts of my life means a lot to us.

I hope the day will come soon when we can say you helped us find a cure for Meagan and thousands of others.

Peace,

John McGuinness

Help me keep the wheels in motion!

noreply@blogger.com (John McGuinness) — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 16:02:00 +0000

Hello,

I know it just seems like yesterday I was writing you about the Great Strides walk (actually it was 2 months ago), but we’re now three weeks away from the Cystic Fibrosis Cycle For Life in Woodinville. Such is living in a place where the weather is nice in July.

But in that time, we have exciting news. Vertex Pharmaceuticals has announced positive results in combining medicines to treat Cystic Fibrosis at the cellular level for the most common mutation of CF, which is the one my daughter Meagan has (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/business/international/vertexs-two-drug-cystic-fibrosis-treatment-shows-promise-in-clinical-trials.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0). This isn’t quite a cure, but can dramatically change the lives of CF patients, and may set the stage for future treatments. As we celebrate our freedom, the day that Meagan and thousands of others will be live in greater freedom -- freedom from some of her treatment regimen, freedom from frequent hospitalizations and limitations, and some freedom from the fear of this terrible disease -- seems to be in sight.

For those of you in the Northwest, this is a 20 or 60 mile bike ride from Red Hook Brewery in Woodinville, followed by party with music, food and beer. This year’s 20-mile ride is flatter than last year, which should make it easier for recreational cyclists like me. You can join my team here: (http://fightcf.cff.org/site/TR?team_id=17932&fr_id=2576&pg=team).

For others, you can donate to my effort here (http://fightcf.cff.org/site/TR/Cycle/132_Washington_Seattle?px=1406507&pg=personal&fr_id=2576).

Whatever you can do, I appreciate the help you have provided in getting us this far, and in joining us on to be a part of these next exciting steps.

Peace,

John McGuinness

Sorry for the feed pushing...

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:33:40 +0000

There’s really nothing new – just migrating some of my feeds. Pay no attention.

Test 3

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:29:52 +0000

One more from Tumblr.

Test post

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 11:39:25 +0000

Testing this post, since quiblit isn’t back up yet, and I want some place to put stuff.