Presidential Priorities, Super Bowl Edition

Amy
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It's a losing battle, believe me. If it's not fantasy football, it's power tools. If it's not power tools it's a garage band.
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Time for bed. Seriously.

Wow. That post contained relevant content. No, wait, no it didn't. But that's ok because it was redeemed by being funny or otherwise entertaining. No, wait, nope on that one too. Ok, I got it, it has relevance to lots of important meta-type issues. Or not. Fail.

Women are never happy with men as they are, they always try to change them!

While I, being a full blooded male do not understand the facination with fantasy sports, for many it is just another way to keep score, to bet a little using something other than just dumb luck. It's like playing the stock market except without the inside traders and the manipulation of stock values. You do well because you just pick the right player to succeed on any given Sunday, or for baseball on any given night. There is research, statistics and of course the opportunity to keep score.

Amy, stop trying to change us and just let us be men. If the fantasy sporting provides a sense of bonding among the administration personnel and gives them an outlet for stress then let them just be boys. It's a lot healthier activity than choosing to get a BJ from an intern.

When he starts buying Intrade futures on his own 2012 defeat. I'll begin worrying. Untl then, let Obama be Obama!

Teehee.
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But Amy, it's not fantasy sports that are ruining the real games for the rest of us, it's your husband who's ruining the real games for you.
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Fantasy sports won't be a problem for the "rest of us" until and unless teams start making decisions about who's on the team and who to play based on their fantasy team potential. Don't think that's happened yet.
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And happily it's not "still a few weeks" from spring training. Feb 6 is Truck Day for the Red Sox, when they transport equipment from Boston to Tampa Bay, to much fanfare and a send-off ceremony. Pitchers and Catchers report Feb 12, nine short days away.
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Totally irrelevant ictures from last year's Truck Day:
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/gallery/02_09_08_truck_day?pg=8

what was that line in the inaugural address about "time to put away childish things?"

pluk - sports are a ritualized way to deal with the war impulse. Not sure they're childish things and in any case play is not always childish.

kathy--
fantasy football isn't a sport, its Dungeons and Dragons for Joe Six Pack.

This from someone who says that people who spend a lot of their time kneeling in front of a painted stick, while eating special crackers in the expectation of gaining immortality thereby deserve a greater role in public life.
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Talk about fantasy.....
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I mean it doesn't really matter how people waste their time, But to get all self-righteous over one particular time-waster when you're an advocate for a really big time waster, that has a history of doing actual damage, is really kinda hard to take.

Tough crowd - tough crowd.....
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You can tell it's Monday morning.
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Now we know the source of pourmecoffee's handle if not his sense of humor.....

His? Her?

Amy, give us a little fun. Just remember if men really ruled the world we'd all still be living in caves. We don't! We are ruled by our women who expect some sense of decorum, a nice home with appropriate furnishings, and a cetain level of attention paid to them. If something interferes with our woman's expectations that is when we have trouble. Sports are one of those things that interferes with the attention issue. Problem is, we are simple creatures who find fun in making body noises, getting a little wasted with our buddies, ogling beautiful women, watching manly sports (no figure skating please), taking a mid day nap and we really hate to shop.
Most of us are harmless creatures just trying to cope with all of life's challenges. Be kind to us and let us have our playtoys.

That was quick, jay won the thread: "This from someone who says that people who spend a lot of their time kneeling in front of a painted stick, while eating special crackers in the expectation of gaining immortality thereby deserve a greater role in public life."
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jay, you might have added something about talking to their invisible friend. That always gets a rise.
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Amy, did you realize you would be associating with so many atheists! The painted sticks, special crackers and the invisable friend comments are a tad rough even for Monday morning.

While I'm not terribly religious, I do hope there is some sort of God out there, even if it is only some huge guy running our petri dish experiment. Without that belief in God or Jesus people would be running around stealing from each other, killing each other, conquering each other, manipulatng stocks, firng people just to improve profits, and having sex with who people other than their spouse or lover. We'd have ministers having sex with their parishioners, priests having sex with young boys, nuns breaking their vows of celibacy and some ministers would even admit to homosexual acts. Oh that's already happening... Never Mind.

Ah, newfloridian, but there are men totting up statistics in meaningless contests, focusing not on the actual results of those meaningless contests, but on those of a simulated version of these meaningless contests. Now THAT'S a problem.
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The painted stick reference comes from Neal Stephenson's monumental Anathem, which I just finished. The novel involves a cloistered community of materialists who have minimal contact with the secular (yes, that's what he calls it) world, with subsets of the cloistered having contact once a year, once a decade, once a century and once a millennium. There's a survey questionnaire that asks about contemporary religious practice, which refers to the painted stick as one of a variety of possible practices.
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The "crackers" reference, of course, comes from the immortal "Do the Handicapped go to Hell?" South Park episode, which (along with its second half "Probably") explores a doctrinal crisis facing the kids. Because Timmy can't complete the rituals, he is apparently damned. It also explores the complexities of Satan's love life.

jayack - I really didn't think Amy was getting self-righteous about fantasy football. I think she's trying (probably in vain) to join with us, have a little joshing fun, as in "stop the fantasy madness before it's too late."
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Since KT, at least, is also a Christian, why is it only Amy who gets the "how can I believe you because you're a Christian" thing, when she's writing about football?

If you folks keep trying to smash Amy over the head with a sledgehammer for every little innocuous post, if she ever really goes off the rails you will be the little boys who cried wolf. C'mon, now. Lighten up.

Because KT isn't a professional scold.
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And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

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See, with me it's shopping. Women shopping. I can not get behind all that shopping they do. It's an expensive addiction and it ruins it for the rest of us. The hobby also has a way of taking over a person's life. Plus, it makes the stores too crowded and the lines too long and takes away from quality family time better spent doing the laundry and hosing down the driveway. Women spend an inordinate amount of time shopping, preparing to shop, recapping their shopping experience, plotting their next foray into those jungles of racks and little rooms and shelves and bags and boxes. Nightmarish! (shudder) Stop the shopping madness before it's too late!
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But as Michelle Obama no doubt knows, the hobby also has a way of taking over a person's life....
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Unlike blog commenting...

I haven't noticed AS praying aloud here, or being a scold for Christ or otherwise knocking on our doors and trying to tell us about Jesus. So why not wait until she does before you guys attack.
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There's a strong strain of anti-Amyism in these threads based, I'm told, on her past writings, and her belief in God. That sounds more like bigotry to me than reasoned thought.

[...] there are still people out there who are actually bothered by the existence of fantasy sports? I’ll bet she’s also never been able to get into the newfangled rock and roll all the [...]

First let me note that I was indeed taking this thread in the light tone it was intended, BUT - an author's past work is, was and remains fair game when evaluating a current post.
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Joe Klein, for instance often says things which seem quite reasonable but that can't alter or erase his utter failure to consider, let alone understand the issues that underlie the NSA's violation of FISA and the President's assertion of unconstitutional authority that remains the cenrtral issue around that debate.
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His willingness to violate principles in order to acheive desirable results is part of his thinking even when I happen to be in agreement with the desired results.
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If Jayack wishes to pounce on an otherwise innocuous Amy Sullivan post, I'll be happy to defend his right to do so...

Amy - "Longstanding beef" sounds dirty. I like it.

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davemc,
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There's a strong strain of anti-Amyism in these threads based, I'm told, on her past writings, and her belief in God.
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It isn't "her belief in God" at all, it is the scolding, lecturing tone she takes and the fingerwagging public Democrat-bashing that she does in her published works. You will probably notice the same antipathy towards other purportedly "liberal" contrarian journos as well. Michael Kinsley was hammered when he posted here, for example. When Joe was the resident "liberal" contrarian gratuitous Democrat-basher, he was hammered as well.
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