Context
As a big fan of filmed entertainment, I've been paying a lot of attention to the WGA West strike. I get a lot of my information from whedonesque.com, because of both my admiration for Joss Whedon himself and my respect for this particular fan community. Whedonesque, in its turn, led me to fans4writers.com, which details actions fans can take to support the striking writers.
Commentary
I am wildly ambivalent about unions. On one hand, I recognize that the right to collective bargaining is an important weapon against poverty, injustice and oppression. On the other hand, I don't like closed shops and resented the fact that when I worked as a public school teacher in Texas I was forced to join the teachers’ union. I guess I feel like in a perfect world individuals would make up their own minds about appropriate working conditions and not take jobs that didn’t fulfill them. However, I am nowhere near naive enough to believe this is a perfect world.
Contributing to my confused stance is my recognition that in 21st century America, well-established labor unions can actually benefit employers who think in the long term. They prevent disruptive wildcat strikes and allow enterprises to use standardized contracts for classes of workers, rather than negotiating new terms for each new hire.
So how does this affect my feelings about the writers’ strike? Well, for one thing I’ll say that this seems like one of those circumstances where studios and entertainment corporations ought to be overjoyed to be able to negotiate with one entity, rather than having to work out a payment scheme with each of the thousands of writers they employ. Moreover, because I love writing and writers, I can’t see any reason why they shouldn’t get a reasonable percentage of the profits created by their efforts, regardless of the medium.
The upshot is although I’m wildly ambivalent about unions, I’m foursquare behind the WGA West on this particular action. So I’ll be taking some of the actions proposed by fans4writers.com. No visits to promotional websites and no downloading of filmed entertainment until the strike is resolved. Possibly even a phone call or two to network executives.
What did you see today?
11/18/2007
I heard John Madden talk about sportsmanship
Context
NBC is broadcasting a football game tonight between the New England Patriots and the Buffalo Bills. John Madden is a former football coach and the color commentator for this game. Towards the end of the first half, when the Patriots had built up a 35-7 lead, Madden said something to this effect: "Nobody should complain about the Patriots running up the score. If they don't want the score run up, they should play some defense."
Commentary
35-7 is not an insurmountable lead in an NFL game. In fact, the Bills themselves have come back from a bigger deficit. However, it's a pretty big lead for a team that's well on the way to an undefeated season playing against a team that's just above .500.
Madden is correct in that if the Bills lose, they have no one to blame but themselves. However, I think he's way off base when he says "no one" should complain. Maybe the opposing team shouldn't, but I think the fans should and do. It's not "competitiveness," which is how some people in the media have tried to dress up this particular bit of ugliness that the Patriots have carried out in almost every game they've played this year, it's poor sportsmanship. Which makes it a very short-sighted tactic for the team to carry out.
Consider why people watch sports. Is it to see someone score points? Well, sure, that's fun, but even Harlem Globetrotters fans aren't really interested in the final score. Sports fans like games that tell a story. Sometimes the story is "underdog emerges victorious." Sometimes it's "perseverance will carry you through" (pretty much always the story when Brett Favre plays). Or even, when two particularly bad teams play each other: "somebody's got to win this stinker."
But what kind of story do you get when one team consistently humiliates its opponents (and does not whistle Sweet Georgia Brown while doing it)? "We're better. We're really better. We're really really really better." When you don't have much of a story, you lose all but your most hard-core fans. And remember, we're talking about sports entertainment here. Not to be too cynical, but winning games is not nearly as important as convincing people to watch you win games (and buy your licensed merchandise).
I turned off the Patriots game at half-time. NBC is running another Patriots game next Sunday and I may not bother to tune in at all, which is saying a lot for a rabid football fan like myself. But I feel like I may have to exercise my right to complain about poor sportsmanship with my clicker. After all, I have no control over Buffalo's defense.
What did you hear today?
NBC is broadcasting a football game tonight between the New England Patriots and the Buffalo Bills. John Madden is a former football coach and the color commentator for this game. Towards the end of the first half, when the Patriots had built up a 35-7 lead, Madden said something to this effect: "Nobody should complain about the Patriots running up the score. If they don't want the score run up, they should play some defense."
Commentary
35-7 is not an insurmountable lead in an NFL game. In fact, the Bills themselves have come back from a bigger deficit. However, it's a pretty big lead for a team that's well on the way to an undefeated season playing against a team that's just above .500.
Madden is correct in that if the Bills lose, they have no one to blame but themselves. However, I think he's way off base when he says "no one" should complain. Maybe the opposing team shouldn't, but I think the fans should and do. It's not "competitiveness," which is how some people in the media have tried to dress up this particular bit of ugliness that the Patriots have carried out in almost every game they've played this year, it's poor sportsmanship. Which makes it a very short-sighted tactic for the team to carry out.
Consider why people watch sports. Is it to see someone score points? Well, sure, that's fun, but even Harlem Globetrotters fans aren't really interested in the final score. Sports fans like games that tell a story. Sometimes the story is "underdog emerges victorious." Sometimes it's "perseverance will carry you through" (pretty much always the story when Brett Favre plays). Or even, when two particularly bad teams play each other: "somebody's got to win this stinker."
But what kind of story do you get when one team consistently humiliates its opponents (and does not whistle Sweet Georgia Brown while doing it)? "We're better. We're really better. We're really really really better." When you don't have much of a story, you lose all but your most hard-core fans. And remember, we're talking about sports entertainment here. Not to be too cynical, but winning games is not nearly as important as convincing people to watch you win games (and buy your licensed merchandise).
I turned off the Patriots game at half-time. NBC is running another Patriots game next Sunday and I may not bother to tune in at all, which is saying a lot for a rabid football fan like myself. But I feel like I may have to exercise my right to complain about poor sportsmanship with my clicker. After all, I have no control over Buffalo's defense.
What did you hear today?
11/10/2007
I saw a column about safety
Context
Monica Carter Tagore is a columnist for The Shreveport Times. Today is Saturday. In Friday's column she discussed some "how to stay safe" responses to a couple of recent incidents in the area.
Commentary
Even though Monica is my favorite columnist in the Times, I don't read the paper religiously enough to catch everything she writes. In fact, I was only reading the Friday paper today because it's my husband's (and dog's) job to get the morning paper and he wasn't up yet. I'm glad to be able to show you the column on the Internet, because the newspaper version had a somewhat nonsensical title.
The reason I like Ms. Tagore's columns so much is not because I always agree with them, but because they're almost always thought provoking. I didn't agree with her definitions of "common sense" and "smarts" today, nor with her solution to the "kid in peril" situation (I never think fear-mongering is a good way to promote safety), but reading the column did set me to thinking about safety in general.
I'm often troubled by how we approach this issue, especially our inclination to look to "preventing bad things" as the solution to society's ills. Don't get me wrong; some forms of prevention are wonderful (life without smallpox vaccines, anyone? I didn't think so.). But I think there are at least three things we need to consider when assessing the value of preventative medicine for a given situation:
1) Nothing will make you 100% safe.
Law enforcement,, popular culture and urban legend tell us that if someone is really determined to steal from us, they will find a way. Even God is not particularly impressed with our efforts to protect ourselves from loss.
2) Sometimes our instinct to just prevent bad things from happening keeps us from better long-term solutions.
I live in Louisiana. I'm nowhere near New Orleans and Shreveport got only one really rainy day out of Rita, but the "how to prevent hurricane damage" debate has an impact statewide on politics and economics.
In middle school I learned that levees are a pretty dicey form of flood prevention, because a body of water that is not permitted to flood occasionally will continually build up silt on its bed. So the water level keeps getting higher and you have to keep building bigger levees. If you do that all around a city over several decades, you end up with a city that's essentially surrounded by levee-walls. When the water finally does wash over, which it will because nothing makes you 100% safe, it's almost impossible to remove. That, in case you were puzzled about it, is what happened to New Orleans.
3) Sometimes it's better go through a bad thing and come out on the other side than to prevent it.
In the Bible, two people avoid death completely: Enoch and Elijah (Tip 'o the hat to Shygost, my husband's Go teacher for reminding me of this fact.). And Enoch and Elijah are obviously two of God's favorite people. But God Himself, in the form of Jesus, did not avoid death. He died and rose again, all for the purpose of ending the sting of death forever.
As a beneficiary, I think this was by far the better result. Frankly, knowing I have a God like that makes me feel pretty darn safe under any circumstances.
What did you see today?
Monica Carter Tagore is a columnist for The Shreveport Times. Today is Saturday. In Friday's column she discussed some "how to stay safe" responses to a couple of recent incidents in the area.
Commentary
Even though Monica is my favorite columnist in the Times, I don't read the paper religiously enough to catch everything she writes. In fact, I was only reading the Friday paper today because it's my husband's (and dog's) job to get the morning paper and he wasn't up yet. I'm glad to be able to show you the column on the Internet, because the newspaper version had a somewhat nonsensical title.
The reason I like Ms. Tagore's columns so much is not because I always agree with them, but because they're almost always thought provoking. I didn't agree with her definitions of "common sense" and "smarts" today, nor with her solution to the "kid in peril" situation (I never think fear-mongering is a good way to promote safety), but reading the column did set me to thinking about safety in general.
I'm often troubled by how we approach this issue, especially our inclination to look to "preventing bad things" as the solution to society's ills. Don't get me wrong; some forms of prevention are wonderful (life without smallpox vaccines, anyone? I didn't think so.). But I think there are at least three things we need to consider when assessing the value of preventative medicine for a given situation:
1) Nothing will make you 100% safe.
Law enforcement,, popular culture and urban legend tell us that if someone is really determined to steal from us, they will find a way. Even God is not particularly impressed with our efforts to protect ourselves from loss.
2) Sometimes our instinct to just prevent bad things from happening keeps us from better long-term solutions.
I live in Louisiana. I'm nowhere near New Orleans and Shreveport got only one really rainy day out of Rita, but the "how to prevent hurricane damage" debate has an impact statewide on politics and economics.
In middle school I learned that levees are a pretty dicey form of flood prevention, because a body of water that is not permitted to flood occasionally will continually build up silt on its bed. So the water level keeps getting higher and you have to keep building bigger levees. If you do that all around a city over several decades, you end up with a city that's essentially surrounded by levee-walls. When the water finally does wash over, which it will because nothing makes you 100% safe, it's almost impossible to remove. That, in case you were puzzled about it, is what happened to New Orleans.
3) Sometimes it's better go through a bad thing and come out on the other side than to prevent it.
In the Bible, two people avoid death completely: Enoch and Elijah (Tip 'o the hat to Shygost, my husband's Go teacher for reminding me of this fact.). And Enoch and Elijah are obviously two of God's favorite people. But God Himself, in the form of Jesus, did not avoid death. He died and rose again, all for the purpose of ending the sting of death forever.
As a beneficiary, I think this was by far the better result. Frankly, knowing I have a God like that makes me feel pretty darn safe under any circumstances.
What did you see today?
11/08/2007
I saw a discussion of incentives
Context
I belong to an e-mail list called ili-l, which stands for Information Literacy Instruction. A recent post on the list asked for suggestions for promoting a certain type of classes. Several responses came back including, "give the students chocolate."
Commentary
Information Literacy Instruction is the practice of teaching someone to find information and use it effectively and ethically, so it's something all librarians engage in to some extent. However, because of the centrality of research to the mission of universities, it's particularly important to academic librarians, and they dominate the discussion on ili-l.
It's particularly depressing to me, therefore, that academic librarians often feel like their role in the information universe is belittled. Apparently people in their communities (not just students, but faculty and administration as well) really believe that everything is on the Internet. This is wrongheaded enough, but even if all the useful information in the world was on the internet, you would still need information professionals (librarians are one class of those, but there are others) to help you find it and use it.
So some academic librarians are reduced to asking how they can possibly convince students at their institutions to avail themselves of their service, and others are reduced to suggesting that students be bribed with chocolate. I had a hard time getting started on this blog entry because I didn't know how to express the many, many reasons I think this is wrong. I finally decided to stick with just one: handing out candy doesn't convince people of the importance of your enterprise; it trivializes it.
Picture this: Lakeisha Student comes back from her Information Literacy class and her roommate asks what it was like. "Well," she says, "I learned to use controlled vocabulary to create more effective searches in specialized databases and I got some M&Ms(tm)!" It's like somebody saying, "I climbed Mount Everest yesterday, and when I got to the top there was a McDonald's(tm)!" By the way, if you don't know what I mean by "using controlled vocabulary to create more effective searches in specialized databases," you might want to ask a librarian. You'd be amazed at what you can learn.
What did you see today?
I belong to an e-mail list called ili-l, which stands for Information Literacy Instruction. A recent post on the list asked for suggestions for promoting a certain type of classes. Several responses came back including, "give the students chocolate."
Commentary
Information Literacy Instruction is the practice of teaching someone to find information and use it effectively and ethically, so it's something all librarians engage in to some extent. However, because of the centrality of research to the mission of universities, it's particularly important to academic librarians, and they dominate the discussion on ili-l.
It's particularly depressing to me, therefore, that academic librarians often feel like their role in the information universe is belittled. Apparently people in their communities (not just students, but faculty and administration as well) really believe that everything is on the Internet. This is wrongheaded enough, but even if all the useful information in the world was on the internet, you would still need information professionals (librarians are one class of those, but there are others) to help you find it and use it.
So some academic librarians are reduced to asking how they can possibly convince students at their institutions to avail themselves of their service, and others are reduced to suggesting that students be bribed with chocolate. I had a hard time getting started on this blog entry because I didn't know how to express the many, many reasons I think this is wrong. I finally decided to stick with just one: handing out candy doesn't convince people of the importance of your enterprise; it trivializes it.
Picture this: Lakeisha Student comes back from her Information Literacy class and her roommate asks what it was like. "Well," she says, "I learned to use controlled vocabulary to create more effective searches in specialized databases and I got some M&Ms(tm)!" It's like somebody saying, "I climbed Mount Everest yesterday, and when I got to the top there was a McDonald's(tm)!" By the way, if you don't know what I mean by "using controlled vocabulary to create more effective searches in specialized databases," you might want to ask a librarian. You'd be amazed at what you can learn.
What did you see today?
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