So, I’m curious, based on a comment thread I’ve been in this morning — those of you who decry the media for negatively portraying the COVID crisis, or other matters affecting college sports, how would you report things?
I mean, if there is something unduly negative about calling the NCAA an illegal cartel after courts have ruled it and the schools have suppressed the labor market in a way that violates antitrust law, how exactly should I or a member of the media describe it?
I really would like to know. Maybe enough to change some of what I post here, or at least the manner in which I present things.
Get The Picture 
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Senator, don’t take the bait from tn-not-a-dawg. You’re fine. He/she/it is trying to cause a stir to get attention. You were perfectly correct. Stand tall and firm on that! A spade is a spade. A cartel is a cartel.
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I just would prefer honesty. Take the idea of “cases.” Cases once and always referred to people actually in the hospital. Those were active cases. Now, a case is breathlessly reported as anyone who is infected.
Take the infection numbers. We’ve seen many states send bad information, like combining those with antibodies with those who are currently infected, those bad numbers are reported, but there’s never a retraction when the updated numbers come out.
Also take how infections are reported. They never talk about infection numbers rising with the numbers of tests in a causal fashion.
Report who actually is most at risk from COVID-19 and why and what the current percentages are so people can judge their own risk accordingly. It’s not just elderly. It’s also people with comorbidities. There are some people out there with asthma or diabetes who are under 60 who may not know they’re a much higher risk. There are many more completely healthy people out there under 60 who think this is a death sentence. The media has done both groups completely wrong.
Stop moving the goalposts. We flattened the curve. Across the country hospital bed use is down. In many places hospital staff are being furloughed. Talk about that more. Also, stop breathlessly reporting that some hospitals ERs are at 95% capacity! Guess what? Most are designed to run that way as a normal way of doing business to keep costs down. I shit you not. The media knows this, but they use reporting that fact as a way to gin up fear. My aunt was an ER trauma nurse for 20 years before moving into administration and it’s misinformation like this that pisses her off the most.
Be truthful about masks. How they work, how they help, but also, how they can harm. People with asthma should not be wearing masks for extended periods of time. Also, your cloth masks are placebos. Also, the “surgical“ masks made in China are junk. Talk about what can happen if you reuse masks over and over without replacing them. Fungal pneumonia is a real, scary, and dangerous thing.
Be honest. Stop drumming up fear for ratings. That includes everyone’s new favorite fear regarding football: myocarditis. This isn’t “new” by the way. Doctors were talking about this back in March. Why? Because you can get myocarditis from EVERY VIRAL INFECTION. It will normally resolve itself on its own. It is a swelling of the heart muscle that can cause a host of issues. You only have to worry about it if you have symptomatic COVID-19, so if you are asymptomatic, you’re not going to get it. Football players aren’t going to be allowed to practice, workout, or play if they exhibit any symptoms like a fever. They take temps before and after all of these activities. Meaning that normal protocols will catch if a kid might have COVID-19 pretty early, meaning no kid will be practicing, working out, or playing with myocarditis. Meaning the PAC-12 and Big Ten are full of shit when they use this as an excuse to cancel the season. Be honest about that.
All this is information I get from my cousin the doctor, my cousin the nurse, and my aunt the nurse. I realize not everyone has medical professionals in their family, but I’ll leave you with this: If the media is only reporting a narrative that seems to magically fit all the things you believe, it might be healthy to wonder if that narrative is b.s. Be skeptical when you see and hear your own beliefs parroted back at you, especially now. Ask questions.
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You need a tl;dr
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He does or you do?
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Yes.
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Geezus, here’s my quick take. The risk is relatively low, but the consequences can be very high. Therefore, the precautions are necessary.
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I liked this but I would qualify the “risk is relatively low” part. The risk of dying is relatively low as a percentage of cases, but it is much higher than the flu, and then there is the damage that may be long term to lungs, heart and other organs. The potential consequences are very high.
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We can’t get into statistical battles here, per the Senator.
I’ll just leave it at that.
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Infections are important because they risk infections for others.
You can’t grasp the risks and the reasons for masks and distancing without that information, no matter how much it may impinge upon your day/interests.
You KNOW who is at most risk. Presumably because of a media outlet.
Your judgment on whether it is or isn’t safe to play is as important as someone’s opinion who thinks the earth is flat. You’re not a decision maker here.
The decision makers are listening to experts and lawyers not pundits, blog posters or sports writers.
You ate up PTC’s fake hs coach narrative yesterday.
You can’t posture yourself as the unbiased voice of reason when you take hold of anything within your “the narrative” of “we’re good here.”
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Unless the decision-makers think the earth is flat, then someone needs to call them out before they make a bad decision based on bad information.
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Which you are free to do. But it won’t matter what any of our opinions are.
You could start a “go fund me” and raise enough money to fund the SEC’s collective litigation costs should it all go wrong. 100 million ought to cover it.
That might move the needle.
BTW: the concept that any of us know more than the people the decision makers are listening to is quite laughable.
Which is why we don’t matter. We’re not epidemiologists and its not our money at risk to the swarm of sharks and vultures who will pick their bones clean if given the chance.
My speculation is that all the SEC is doing is putting on a show that they care more about football so that they can say, “we tried, we really, really tried. Tried a lot harder than those wimps out west and those damn yankees.”
But we’ll see. Nothing I want more than Georgia football.
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I agree.
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/”you’re not a decision maker”
Senator’s post was soliciting commentary on how any of us would re-calibrate the reporting. Are you saying that the entire public is consuming popular media ad nauseum but that once anyone steps inside the chain of influence command, they automatically only consult primary sources that are totally impeccable ? That no decision maker is influenced by the very thing we deemed so crucial as to put #1 in our bill of rights in order to maintain a dialogue amongst the people and their “decision makers?” Seems like that’s either a ridiculous proposition (where does the chain of command begin and end) or that we may, in fact, have a Czar ? Sankey said we don’t have a Czar, but maybe you know more. Are you the Czar ?
Maybe, much like the law profession, this whole shitshow is why we call medicine a “PRACTICE”. Because there’s opinions of varying degrees on new topics and sometimes several ways to skin a cat. Hell they give vasectomies in different ways these days.
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Someone told me the other day that the same medical profession and bureaucracy that governs it that gave us the polio vaccine also gave us thalidomide. The morbidity of if made me laugh out loud.
Take it for what you will.
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And leeches!
And antibiotics!
And shock treatment!!
And a small pox vaccine!!
Experts! Who cares!
What medical advances have you authored Corch?
The arrogance of anti-intellectualism is quite entertaining actually.
Should we be reminded that the first rocket did not in fact transport anyone to the moon?
Hence, let us question the validity of the rocket science!
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The arrogance of supposed intellectuals would be quite entertaining, if the outcomes weren’t so tragic…. Since I’m sure JFK is one of your intellectual heroes, ask him if the frontal lobotomy on his sister helped…
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We were better off in caves.
All human knowledge has been a waste given its horrible track record of failure and cruelty.
Now dumb, uneducated and unqualified people on the other hand have left a mark of distinction throughout human history.
We have much to be thankful of them. Its a shame there are no monuments to them with their list of accomplishments:
…..
……
……..
…..
…..
Its quite inspiring actually.
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Corch, all those horrible malformations from thalidomide occurred in Europe and other countries. The FDA refused to approve thalidomide for sale in the US. That is considered a great victory for the FDA and US medicine. Whoever told you that is FOS.
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What does that have to do with what I said or was said to me. There was never a qualification on if it was “American” or not. Jeez, man.
Sometimes we get way too far in the weeds in parsing every single syllable of what someone else says here for cheap, “Gotchas!”
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It has everything to do with what you said. I assumed you were referring to the US medical profession since that is the one that is pertinent to US health care, which is where we live. You were implying that the same medical profession that gave us the miracle of the polio vaccine also gave us the horror of the thalidomide defects, so be very careful about trusting them. I’m saying you are using one of the FDA’s greatest victories as a reason to doubt their effectiveness. I just find that argument strange.
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Please refer back to my response.
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I know this is pointless to argue but here’s my response to this. You’re saying that the risks are low so they should play with certain protocols. However, in that scenario players could still potentially get sick long term or worst case die. I understand the chances of this aren’t high but they do exist. If that happens do you want to be sitting there after the fact in the position of the schools and NCAA having put kids at risk? Especially when the schools and conferences stand to make millions and the coaches are getting paid millions, etc and you’ve put kids at risk who aren’t paid? The optics are horrible if some players have to get put on ventilators or if god forbid someone dies. There’s no way to just say the risks are low so let’s play.
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You assume they will get sick from playing football when they are far more likely to get sick from the student population.
What makes my position defensible and yours not is I’ve been steadfast in saying if the schools are open and kids are on campus, fall sports must be played. It makes absolutely zero sense to cancel fall sports if kids are on campus.
Now, if they shut down campuses, you can’t have fall sports, even if they were to shut down the campus for a bullshit reason.
The Big Ten just shut down football and other fall sports. Yet the University of Minnesota is still allowing intramural team sports to play.
How the hell does that make sense? If you can explain it to me so it does, I’m willing to listen.
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It’s easier to deal with masks and social distancing while having students on campus than it is for football players tackling each other, but you’re right that when students begin getting sick which they will, then universities will have to ask themselves if having kids in classrooms is a smart idea. I just moved my freshman daughter into a dorm room and I can’t imagine that’s going to go well to stop the spread.
The reason they can have intramural sports is because if someone playing intramural lacrosse gets sick and dies, yes some will be mad at the school but everyone can point to the fact that it was a voluntary choice those students made to take part in those activities. With college football players the money dynamic doesn’t make that argument so clear. College football is unique with all of the millions tied up in the sport that the players aren’t getting a part of. So when bad things inevitably happen with this virus, then the optics look terrible. It’s a bunch of people getting rich off the backs of these kids at risk.
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I may be wrong, but aren’t their scholarships guaranteed if they decide to sit out? So if that is true, there goes the argument that they’re being coerced. They’re all 18 years old, meaning they have the legal right to make their own decision either way. I want to respect that right.
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As I said yesterday:
Is the message to the players: “you may die if you play” OR “we can keep you safe?”
Voluntariness falls by the wayside if the programs are pumping up how great a job they can do to keep them safe.
Which many of them have already said:
“Safest place in the world is the football facility.“ Over and over the mantra.
If they’re wrong you can’t say to the player: “you can’t sue, you knew it wasn’t safe.”
“Thats not what coach said on Finebaum!”
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So what you’re saying is, you have issues with being presented all information so the players can make their own risk assessment. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the place they’ll receive the best medical care and testing and everything going to be with the team? If they decide to not play and are removed from the team until next year, they’re just another student, correct? Meaning they don’t get that medical attention and care?
Seems like that’s information they should have so they can make an informed decision to me.
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You’re not addressing the issue.
Which is: what are the schools emphasizing?
The risks? The lack thereof?
If you tell them they probably ought not play because its too risky, then they are covered in court.
However, if they play anyway, in spite of that message, then they are very bad people.
You should see this trap.
Its really too obvious to miss.
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No, what I see is a paternalist, patronizing attitude towards legal adults who can make their own decisions. As Tony BarnFart said, they are either adults we can trust to make decisions best for them or they’re not.
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Or they’re prospective plaintiffs like the rest of us.
Don’t sue the 18 wheeler driver that runs over you drunk.
You knew the risks when you left the house. You’re an adult right?
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When all you have left is this kind of hyperbole, I can only imagine the ad hominem is the final card left to play.
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It’s not as easy as just saying “I want to take the year off.” These are majority black athletes, many coming from poor backgrounds. Many of them, right or wrong, feel like football is their path to wealth and a brighter future. Plus I’m sure you can’t deny the pressures they’d be under to stay on the team both from coaches and peers. You really think Dabo or Saban would be fully supportive of players sitting out?
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Yes, you can opt out if you want to maintain your scholarship. The worst you could probably say is institutional / peer pressure would be greater, but GD’it, these people are either legal adults or I want the effing voting age moved back to about 25. Seriously. We should not be placing this artificial facade of helpless incompetence on people that we have collectively decided are competent enough to help elect people who might write shitty shitty laws for all of us.
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**meant to say AND MAINTAIN [your scholarship].
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And they should also damn well be happy with the compensation that is limited by a group that has decided they don’t deserve the rights other adults in their position do.
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This is simply not true, universities can absolutely have students on campus and cancel fall sports, as sports (of ALL type) are not the core mission of the universities, that’s education. Athletes keeping their scholarships is in-line with that.
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Academic institutions based on the Greek model most definitely include sports and athletic competition as part of their mission statement. The Greeks believed in perfecting the mind and the body.
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I’m pretty sure the Greek TV rights didn’t have such an input on whether or not certain athletes should play.
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That would explain why the Ancient Olympics never really caught on with the world as it was then.
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Chucky Mullins died from complications associated with a football injury. Devon Gales spent a year or 2 in the Shepherd Center and will likely never walk again as a result of spinal injury suffered on the field. Darryl Stingley spent most of his adult life paralyzed as a result of a spearing hit from Jack Tatum.
Football is a sport with inherent risk (and right now, contracting the virus is one of those). Players have been given the option not to play is they feel it isn’t safe without losing a year of eligibility. Many players understand the risk and want to play. The universities have a financial interest in playing. Cancelling the season doesn’t affect you or me, but it does have an effect on the universities and the players.
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C’mon man, paralysis isn’t contagious. Everyone understands the risks of walking out their front door every day.
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You’re right – paralysis isn’t contagious.
If you think football and all activity should be cancelled due to Covid, why do you not have a problem with football being played when an athlete can have a debilitating even permanently disabling injury? If they can sufficiently test and isolate those who test positive, I would think the risk of transmission on the field could be managed. If every helmet were fitted with a face shield, wouldn’t that minimize the risk of spread from one team to another?
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The difference here is we don’t know exactly what the risks are. Serious injury, including death and paralysis, is always a possibility in athletics. But I do not agree with you that contracting a virus that has unknown, potentially deadly consequences, is one of the inherent risks of playing football.
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The players aren’t being forced to participate. With very few exceptions, every college football player is an adult who can make his own decisions about the risks. Every player who opts out for the season isn’t going to lose a year of eligibility even if he has already taken a redshirt.
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“Cancelling the season doesn’t affect you or me…”
Really?? I think it entirely effects every single college football fan, and it’s why some of our more obtuse commenters keep putting on their junior virologist hat. We are emotionally committed, it’s in our lifeblood. I admit I want to see the season, but I’m putting nothing on the line and I am not responsible for anyone’s well-being. If the conferences, which have everything on the line financially and are responsible for player safety, think they need to push the season back, who am I to say they are wrong?
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Cancelling the season would have a huge affect on many more people than just the players, coaches, and administrators, who should all be fine financially speaking.
For many others, including the businesses in every college town, they’re 100% fucked in those Big Ten and Pac-12 towns.
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Does it affect me? Sure, emotionally, but I’ll find other things to occupy my fall Saturdays if it doesn’t happen or if fans aren’t invited to participate. I’ve attended games in Sanford Stadium since 1981, so not attending a game will be weird. My point is that the impact of no season won’t hit me in the pocketbook or affect the health of my family. I don’t have an interest beyond my love for UGA football … I don’t sit in front of my television for 12 hours every Saturday to watch games from coast to coast. If I had a small business in Athens that supported my family, I would be scared to death right now that everything I had invested in over a number of years could vanish over a 3-6 month period through no fault of my own. That’s what I mean when I saying cancelling the season doesn’t affect me.
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Imagine what’s going to happen to the bar owners in Eugune and the hoteliers in Lincoln.
Cities like Madison and Austin, capital cities or cities where they have more stuff than college going on, should be relatively okay. However, towns like Pullman, WA and West Lafayette, IN are incredibly fucked.
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Even capital cities like Tallahassee, Columbia or Baton Rouge are going to be hard hit if the season gets cancelled or severely shortened. Those really are college towns that happen to be in state capitals.
College towns like Athens, Auburn, Clemson, Oxford, and Blacksburg are going to be devastated if the tourism caused by 6 weekends of college football dries up.
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They are already doing this, see the concussion litigation. They ignored the science and now are having to deal with traumatic brain injury cases. The COVID-19 decisions are following a similar path (unless they pull out of the season).
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I’m going to do my best not to create a stats battle that will result in the Senator guillotining this thread, but . . .
“Now, a case is breathlessly reported as anyone who is infected.” Why shouldn’t it be? An infected person can get sick and die. An infected person can also infect other people. Why shouldn’t we be concerned about that?
“They never talk about infection numbers rising with the numbers of tests in a causal fashion.” An irrelevant tautology. Increased testing doesn’t cause more infections, it merely informs us about existing infections we wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
“We flattened the curve.” You’re right, we did—in mid-June. Then we opened everything up prematurely and infections started shooting back up.
“In many places hospital staff are being furloughed.” You’re correct, but not for the reason you think. Hospitals make a substantial chunk of their revenue from elective procedures, which they’ve largely had to stop doing because of COVID. They’re not furloughing staff because COVID has somehow become less serious, they’re doing it because they’re running out of money to pay all but the most essential people.
“Also, stop breathlessly reporting that some hospitals ERs are at 95% capacity! Guess what? Most are designed to run that way as a normal way of doing business to keep costs down.” I’d be really interested to know where you heard this. Again, these patients aren’t coming into the ER for cash-cow elective procedures. How does filling an ER with patients who may or may not have insurance keep costs down?
“Also, your cloth masks are placebos.” Not according to the CDC.
“Talk about what can happen if you reuse masks over and over without replacing them.” CNN, a network I’m sure you love and respect, did a segment on that just yesterday.
Look, you don’t trust the media. Fine. But I sense that this has less to do with any widespread failure of reporting than it does with pre-existing negative opinions of the media that a certain segment of the political spectrum has been stoking for half a century. I’m going to stick with thinking this pandemic is serious business, and it’s because dozens of doctors and epidemiologists have said so (including my father, an M.D. for more than 40 years), not because anyone in the media did.
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“They never talk about infection numbers rising with the numbers of tests in a causal fashion.” An irrelevant tautology. Increased testing doesn’t cause more infections, it merely informs us about existing infections we wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
The fat that cases have increased on pace with an increase in testing is relevant. The media is using the rise in the number of cases to make the case that the infection was under control and now it is on the rise. The increase in cases could simply be us finding out about how many cases there have been all along, which means that the mortality rate for this new cold virus is very low. Good news!
“We flattened the curve.” You’re right, we did—in mid-June. Then we opened everything up prematurely and infections started shooting back up.
There you have it. You are concluding that infections are suddenly rising when it could very well mean that we have more testing data than we had before.
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“Infections aren’t suddenly rising—they’ve always been super-high!” is not the brilliant rejoinder you think it is.
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Sure it is – it demonstrates that COVID-19 is not the Black Death mowing down huge swaths of people, as you apparently believe. There was a study last month and among 1,000 Americans polled, they thought an average of 9% of people in the country have DIED of COVID-19 (https://www.kekstcnc.com/media/2793/kekstcnc_research_covid-19_opinion_tracker_wave-4.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3HgPih2KPCdE8RUWogxBrn_yEMrNqDXdG16GYQPTj73Vkh23Jtb-tLH8U) (last slide), when the number was actually ONE-TENTH of ONE PERCENT!
Not sure if these count as “COVID stats” (and sorry for throwing them in if so), but I think the difference in those 2 numbers demonstrates the gap in perception vs. reality…. Sure its just one poll, but it shows the perception is 900X the reality – where else would people have gotten so out of whack but for the panic porn and fearmongering we get from the media???
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Just realized I said 900X, when it should be 90X (hope that doesn’t count as a double stat!)
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Most people have been infected with COVID-19 and never even know it. That’s how it presents for the vast majority of people. So yes, falsely labeling every infection as a CASE and pivoting from the death rate to the CASE RATE because the death rate dropped once we figured out who was dying is a dishonest piece of journalism.
Regardless of what you may think, you’re 100% wrong here. While there are some spikes, the rate of known infection has risen causally with the rate of testing. So like I said, people are generally infected and don’t know it. Why is this important? Because the people presenting with antibodies have shown that our country has likely had ten times the number of infected, which makes other numbers subject to further scrutiny. Again, not me, this is coming from the medical professionals in my family.
You don’t understand what flattening the curve means. That’s okay. Most don’t. It’s not about driving infection numbers down to zero or a plateau, it’s about driving down the number of infected who go to the hospital to keep beds open /9 hospitals aren’t overwhelmed. Most people infected with COVID-19 never even know it, so they will never go to the hospital, because for most people it presents like a cold. That’s not me saying this, remember. This is my nurse aunt, nurse cousin, and doctor cousin.
What makes cloth masks ineffective for the majority of people is mostly in how they’ve been constructed. Much like the junk masks from China, most medical professionals believe the cloth masks people are wearing are junk because they are not constructed correctly.
If CNN reported that on the masks, well, good for them. What was in the report? Everything I said or certain parts. I‘d be interested to know if anything was left out.
You mistake my perfectly valid distrust of a media that has in fact lied to us about COVID-19 since the beginning (in part because China and WHO lied to us, so
I’ll give them that mulligan) with me not taking the virus seriously. I take it seriously. I wear a mask. I got tested when I was exposed to someone who I found out had it. My test was negative. I take it seriously. But I only take it as seriously as it should be taken, so no, I don’t believe kids should be kept out of school or stop playing sports because of this.
Why? Because they’re not at any statistical risk and people and parents should be allowed to judge those risks honestly and make their own decisions, not have those decisions made for them.
Why? Because of everything the media has done its best to ignore during our shutdowns and social distancing and wrecked economy: the exponential rise in suicide and suicidal thoughts, ODs and addiction, mental illness, unchecked diseases because people are scared to go to the hospital, and domestic violence. Those present far more actual damage and danger to the majority of our population than COVID-19.
YMMV, of course, but my medical professional family members are also far more worried about those things than COVID-19. So that’s why I am.
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I’m sorry, what color pony did you want? The national news media has precious minutes to get across the top line facts before they start losing eyeballs. What’s the latest consensus info on the virus and prevention? Where is the virus surging. Hospitals in what states are filling up? What states are seeing cases subside? The national media has time to maybe answer those questions. They only have a sledge hammer in the toolbox, perfectly uniform, flush nails is a lofty expectation.
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I’m sorry, I thought I was clear:
I want honesty. What we’re getting now isn’t that.
Is that easier to understand?
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No, you want micro reporting from a macro media. The national media paints with broad brush strokes, they cover the most space in the least time. You are expecting a Matisse from house painters.
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If that’s your takeaway here, then I have nothing for you.
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The gripe on the “media” is certainly justifiable in a lot of ways, but not in the way most “mainstream media haters” tend to proclaim. When most friends and family members of mine point out the certain aspects of COVID-19 “not reported” on by the media, they fail to recognize that their “desired” aspects are reported – just not in the media that they read or happen upon. They are usually being told what is “not” being reported through other media outlets they frequent, or they read one article (usually linked within another article of their choosing) that mentions information they prefer not to hear and conclude that media is not offering the data points they want to see – when, if they look more in depth, those points are available. A great aspect of the internet and Google is that any information is quickly obtained if we really want be informed. (man, if Google was around when I was at UGA). It just now takes more analysis and removal of biases than most are capable of. The internet is an amazing interconnected network of knowledge and human subject matter experts available to help spread that knowledge, but in reality it’s a troll buzzer machine that leads you further from your target every step of the way.
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I’m not sure about the coverage of the NCAA, that seems pretty fair criticism to me. As to COVID, I do feel that the media, including some sports media, have been one-sided. There is very little positive news and at times the agenda of some media is obvious. There is a rush in the media to applaud the shuttering of every rather than encouragement of the consideration of solutions to make things work in spite of the virus and in spite of Americans not being real receptive to mandates. We could figure out a way to allow football, but people have to accept that it won’t be perfect, and the media could help by cutting down on the hysteria.
The media didn’t shut down football, but it has helped sap the will of the country. It has made it acceptable to quit, and it has even made it look admirable to give up. Cain’t never could. At some point, unless a medical miracle comes real fast, we are gonna have to move on in spite of the risk, or we’ll lose a lot more than football. In fact, we already have..
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Yeah I was getting geared up to basically type your last line.
165k are dead. Seems like reporting about this pandemic isn’t going to be particularly “positive” especially considering the rest of the world seems to be light years ahead of us.
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Except, again due to untruthful reporting, they’re not light years ahead of us. If you remove NY, NJ, MA, and CT, the US is in the bottom third in the world for per capita death rate. Even with them we’re still not higher than the countries closest to us in other population factors.
So again, you believe the worst because you’ve been lied to by the media.
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“If you remove NY, NJ, MA, and CT, the US is in the bottom third in the world for per capita death rate.” Yeah, and if you remove the dozens of women who’ve dumped me over the years, my dating success rate is better than Wilt Chamberlain’s. But that’s not how this works.
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I get that, but it is important to understand the concept of outliers, especially since the majority of the media keeps blaming the people they don’t like (flyover country) for how we’ve handled COVID-19 when it was their own leadership they voted for in the states in which they live that factually did the worst job in the entire world in handling this virus. Worse than Italy and Spain, even. In our country, those states and their insane deaths per capita rates are outliers.
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Not sure how you call a majority of the deaths an “outlier”.
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That’s a perfectly normal, emotional, human response, Russ. It is not, however, a statistically relevant, rational response. We call them outliers because that is what they are. The majority of our states have not had death rates per capita anywhere near close to those four states because of those governors made, so they’re outliers. It’s not a throwaway term or a way to lessen the blow. It’s just what they are.
We have to have the ability to speak in mathematical, statistical terms when it comes to a pandemic. Almost 100% of the problems I have right now with the way the media presents information is it lacks that nuance and is almost always emotionally and irrationally anecdotal.
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No, my response was factual and based on statistics. I’m assuming you took statistics. You learned you can’t throw out a majority of the data because it doesn’t fit the conclusions you want to draw. The data are the data. We’re one country and those states belong in the data set. They aren’t outliers.
You want to parse the data by state. Then be honest and say so. But when you compare countries (like we’re doing), those aren’t outliers.
Oh, and the condescending BS gets old.
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Except you cannot compare our country as a whole to other countries because of how we are governed. We give rights and powers to the states that the federal government does not have to avoid having an overbearing centralized government. It’s a feature, not a bug. We handle the virus on the state level, so it is viable to judge our response based on that.
I don’t believe I’m being condescending, but I do apologize if you feel that way.
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Even aside from berating them from politics, we are now keenly aware of the grave mistake they made and are unlikely to repeat it. That’s a great thing. That means we are in better control of handling the virus—so why can’t the media ever paint that picture ?
But back to point 1, part of the reason those grave decisions were made was because of level 10 fear espoused by media in overwhelming the hospital system. That, or either the primary sources, the impeccable experts you shall not question and the only ones who all the decision makers listen to while wisely ignoring the media (rigghhhhht) got it dead effing wrong. Either way, here we are. But lets move on, because now we know better. And that’s a good thing.
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Corch, I’ve made the mistake today, and it’ll be the last time until something changes, of commenting on this blog. You have one point – that the media is lying to us – that you make incessantly on any topic here. On any given post you must make up 25% of the comments.
Given the volume you’ve put in, that you haven’t won the argument yet should tell you either a) it cannot be won; or b) it cannot be won by repeating a single point ad nauseum. Either way, I want you to know that you, single-handedly, have ruined the comment section of this blog for me. I used to enjoy coming here to talk Dawg, and at the same time to get ea healthy smattering of opposing views to mine on relevant topics. Instead, the comment section is now a fire-hose of you and you only, and your singular point that you make like someone making $5/hour in a Turksih troll-farm.
So I’m done with the comments – reading or posting – for probably a month or more, and then just to check on whether you’ve finally been banned. I hope that day comes soon and I can go back to enjoying this blog like I used to. Thanks for ruining one of the few good things left out there in this world, Corch.
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Everything is within your control, including how you choose to react to whatever situation you encounter. I wish you well.
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I’m not a lawyer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I call them a cartel because that’s exactly what they are. A criminal cartel like the drug cartels collude to make sure the illegal product they sell gets to market. OPEC is a cartel that attempts to prop up the market price of crude oil artificially through the actions of nation-states who agree on production quotas. The NCAA is a cartel that uses its rules to control the price of labor that participate in intercollegiate activities. In all cases, a cartel is a group of entities that act to control competition. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s safe to say, “It’s a duck.”
On the Covid question, I think there are some writers who are invested in a negative outcome. Sure, they want a season, but they’ll be just as happy to say, “See, I told you so.” I have no problem with writers seeing what they see and drawing conclusions (those who decide to make themselves the story should have to own their conclusions on the back end). I think those Big 10 and Pac 12 ADs who gave information to the national writers anonymously to attempt to get the entire Power 5 to cancel the fall season suck.
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^This, and the comment below it. I can’t believe that there are people here who want the media to tell it like they want to hear it. Period. End of story.
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There is an insane amount of solid reporting on all these things.
The media is an all-you-can eat Vegas buffet. And we’ve got vegans at the salad station snarling about the carving stations as “the buffet” and sugar addicts at the mile-long dessert bar growling about the salad bar as “the buffet”.
People want their preferences confirmed across the board. Not going to happen.
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You’re fine.
Too many people, including some of the commentators here are trapped in what Sufjan Steven’s new single calls the Video Game. They are their own personal Jesus, center of the universe, or modern-day Julius Caesar playing the digital warrior game of soundbites, retweets, likes, memes, and witty condescension.
You’re not playing their game, hence you become the enemy in their game.
I would feel pity and show concern for their mental state if they weren’t pushing our country to the brink.
There’s an America that people are choosing to live in where LA is a 3rd world country, anarchy is rampant, property is more important than life, rapists are flooding over the border, Biden is a Manchuran candidate, Democrats eat babies, a virus is unleashed across the entire world for the sole purpose of damaging one person’s re-election prospects, and it is all orchestrated by Jews through the media cartel, or something.
I know, I know, this is a Wendy’s. 🙂
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Cartel is a term reserved for the worst brown and black criminals. Using it to describe white men who happen to be in violation of an unjust federal regulation, well that just shows your bias.
-someone on dawg vent probably.
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BTW, just saw a blurb that Kelee Ringo will undergo shoulder surgery and will be out a while. That sucks for the young man, but if there’s ever a time to miss, this would be it. Hope the surgery goes well and Courson does his rehab magic.
https://www.wgauradio.com/sports/college/georgia-football-freshman-db-kelee-ringo-undergo-shoulder-surgery/DFZEUWZ4R5HBVHSMKNG7ALRKIE/
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Six of one, half a dozen of another… he can redshirt, or if this season is cancelled, he may simply get an extra year of eligibility regardless. So… yay?
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Just my two cents – I come here for a different perspective. I love when the Senator and commenters can have a civil discourse over the topics.
This is your blog and I’m just happy to be along for the ride.
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You could just refer to the organization by it’s name…the NCAA. Adding “illegal cartel” is only appropriate when tied directly to the context of the court findings.
But that’s not the issue here. Yours is an opinion blog, not news as you often have to assert. Your “news” is sourced from news reports. So to that end, you should continue to enjoy your own full editorial discretion. Some may object, but so what? Are you going to change your opinions because it may offend someone else’s agenda? We should hope not, or you’ll lose the single most important thing you have going here at GTP…honesty. When you give that up then this will be just another internet cesspool of false statements posing as facts.
Now please return to your far left, new-conservative liberal Fundamentalist agenda so the far left and right among us can who are truly righteous can hurl nonsensical insults and post misleading articles in a vain attempt to right the world of all your wrongs.
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I wasn’t asking with the idea of trying not to offend folks, more like inquiring if there was a different way to go at situations than I’ve thought of.
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I think most of us realize that. I didn’t find anything objectionable, though as I’ve often said, it is far easier to be offended than it is to give offense.
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If there is a better way than what you do, I can’t imagine it.
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While I am sure COVID is real (I know 4 people whose deaths have been attributed to C-19 – all were over 80), media reporting is overblown, IMHO.
I like the idea of a mask mandate in public buildings and businesses (and college stadiums). Other than that, I think is one is willing to assume the risk, so be it.
I’ll duck for cover now.
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If i were Czar of the US here is what I would say:
– wear a god damn mask and wear it correctly. Get one that seals up with elastic around the head, not ears, and with a nose wire. Put a filter in it so it really works.
– Mask and 6ft and hand washing and we’ll knock this virus out. If that’s the only thing you remember, remember those.
– If at any time either a mask or the 6ft rule cannot be maintained, make sure you are extra careful with the one that can.
– Don’t do anything that breaches both simultaneously.
– Anything you can do outside, do it there instead of inside.
– Be extra diligent with the mask and 6ft rule inside.
Everybody could literally do that for a month and damn near continue to go on about their life as normal and we’d destroy this virus.
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Tony, do you think wearing a mask outside in a situation where you can control distancing is valuable? Wearing a mask outside at Disney World where it’s going to be difficult to ensure consistent distancing would appear to be prudent (and, in their case, required). Wearing a mask sitting at the beach where people have distanced themselves appears to be useless and would more likely encourage someone to move to a location inside (like a bar).
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The truth will continue to set you free, Senator. The NCAA is a cartel.
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I have largely shut out media, so, when I do hear clips on the radio they hit me hard. I choose to look at http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots. It is basically a look at the numbers. Last week most of the country was “green”, meaning that case numbers were trending to lower per capital numbers. This week they changed the metric and much of the country was “red” again. The new metric they use is “infections per 100,000”, the old was just “new infection percentages” which I assume was a number based on the whole population.
What happened made me kind of frustrated because the cynic in me thought “well, they changed it to make the map red again”.
Senator, I visit your blog daily and truly enjoy your takes on things because you’re intelligent and your snark is championship level. I see what you tend to do, read a news article or something and quip on it. It’s fun and entertaining to me.
I appreciate you asking for opinions on your product, but I do not believe you have gotten stuck in some kind of pattern where your quips have gotten overly biased one way or another. I happen to be further right than you are on the political spectrum but I do not believe that you are preaching that much farther left than any “normal” person would. We all see the people here that just wont listen, you’re not one of them.
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Absolutely keep calling the National Communist Collegiate Association an ILLEGAL CARTEL!
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Is it just me or is every comment thread these days the Playpen?
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This is probably a good spot to shut down this comment thread.
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