Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Redecorating...
changed up the look. that sad ugly.. lazy monkeysilog header before was inexcusable. even though nobody reads this, I shouldn't have let it linger for so long!

Ulam cooked @ 7:41 PM

 0 of the headscratch variety

Friday, November 09, 2007

More on race and sports
This is an excerpt from Todd Boyd's column in response to the backlash Donovan McNabb received earlier in the year when he stated that Black quarterbacks are scrutinized differently (more intensely) than white quarterbacks.

I've never thought differently. My main point? When a white quarterback is bad, he's just bad. When a white quarterback is great, he's the greatest of all time. When a black quarterback is bad, he's barely a ripple. When he's great, he's still not that great. Just my opinion. People still talk about the "mobile" quarterback versus the "pocket" quarterback. We know who's who, in most cases. Had Rex Grossman, Jay Fiedler, Chad Pennington, or the heavily concussed Trent Green been black, I doubt they would've owned their starting positions as long as they had. I could be wrong. But, that's just my opinion. And, this isn't necessarily about active and intentional race-based scrutiny - I think it's about the historically built expectations we have for the "white" and "black" quarterback. Coaches and fans aren't necessarily trusting white quarterbacks more and black quarterbacks less, but when the league, until recently, has passive-aggressively implied that (except if you're Warren Moon) you'll inevitably fail as a black quarterback, that just doesn't go away after a few years. Racism isn't that easy.

So anyway, that's my rant. Here's the excerpt from the Story:

"When Larry Bird said a few years ago that the NBA needed more white superstars to appease what he considered to be a predominately white fan base, there was some mild disagreement, sure, but much of the conversation in the aftermath of his comments was about whether or not Bird had made a valid point. This benefit of the doubt is something that never was extended to Donovan and seldom, if ever, has been extended to black athletes who choose to utter concerns about racial inequities in their respective sports.

In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash mentioned that one of the reasons he wasn't highly touted or heavily recruited out of high school was due to being a "6-foot-1, white point guard." Forgive me if I missed it, but I have yet to hear the public outcry about Nash's playing the race card. Earlier this summer, former No. 1 overall pick Andrew Bogut of the Milwaukee Bucks, in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, racially and culturally profiled "80 percent" of his NBA peers when he stated that they often go broke behind excessive spending on cars, jewelry and women. He even went as far as to link this wanton excessiveness to American culture in general. Bogut's comments drew nary a peep, though, in spite of their incendiary, stereotypical nature.

Why no outcry in any of these instances? Because when white athletes speak, their comments are thought to reflect their own individual opinions, not those of all white athletes. Yet when one black athlete speaks, all black athletes are assumed guilty by association."

Ulam cooked @ 11:42 AM

 0 of the headscratch variety

Friday, November 02, 2007

NaNoWriMo: Day 1
It's been a bit of a struggle today. I really did have a problem hammering out what concept I wanted to run with, but I chose one and am ankle deep now. I'm in pure exposition right now and I definitely have a direction I'm working towards. It's just a struggle to set this table, but I think it'll be alright. I'm at about 2000 words.

Ulam cooked @ 12:30 AM

 0 of the headscratch variety