Picked up the LA Times today. Not my first choice of daily news as it is the very publication responsible for my former habit of "talking to newspapers" and served as the primary force that first propelled me into the blogosphere.
There it was, prominently positioned in the center of the page and my eyes went to it immediately; a story about the latest "problem" that American society "needs to address". Know what it is? It's this: No one seems to be very interested in the Women's NCAA Basketball Championship, especially compared to the hype around the Men's tournament. They are playing the games in empty arenas. Ghastly!
Nothing against women or women's sports, but if an event is not interesting to the masses, that is not a problem for society to address.
But I'll tell you this, if we collectively decide to start addressing such travesties, then I want a redo on the Stompers. What? You don't know who the Stompers are? They were a band from Boston in the 70's and my cousin was dating the lead singer. If they could have just leveraged their one quasi-hit (Heart for Sale) into mega-stardom, I could have attached myself to their inner circle, ridden their coattails, and walked the red carpets among the glitterati. Unfortunately, the masses were not interested in the Stompers' mediocre brand of pop entertainment and society utterly failed to address that problem.
Point is, my urge to mutter aloud while reading the story was somehow dampened by the knowledge that I could spew about it here. Blog therapy seems to be working...
You obviously are not located in CT-- home of the UCONN Huskies...still undefeated at 37-0. People care here- but they've been good for so long that nothing but a championship is considered successful. Watch for a men's and women's championship...
ReplyDeleteWe could say the same about soccer (in general)...and ...um... college hockey. JD
This JD fellow has a good track record of totally missing the point on posts in this blog. Women's basketball is a nearly irrelevant element in the message, it just happened to be the example. Consider it this way JD: no one watched the XFL when it was broadcast -- was that a PROBLEM that SOCIETY NEEDED to address? Of course not. When Gilligan's island couldn't attract an audience, they took it off the air - no problem. So the masses are not excited by Women's hoop, so what?
ReplyDeleteI'm feeling dissed-- you think because you saw it in the paper that the masses might agree with this guy...he's just trying to stir things up...just like any guy with a blog. You shouldn't get all wigged out. 99% of the general populace didn't read the article and skipped right to dear ann landers and their horoscopes.
ReplyDeletemy comparisons to soccer and college hockey were agreeing with the point. Tell anyone in maine that no one cares about college hockey, or any manchester united fanatic that soccer is dull...and you'll get a similar ghastly reaction. Red Sox writers always are aghast that left coasters leave the bb games in the 7th inning-- where oh where is the passion? how could that be? and, because this is uconn country, people do care here about woman's basketball, about the team, and don't particularly care what others do. You won't find that anywhere but Uconn and tennessee. We might not understand, we might do things differently, but that's the way it is.
you could just as well have read an article about voter turnout-- even in good times its what, 50%? People only care what they care about and good luck getting them stirred up about anything that lasts more than 5 minutes. The stompers could come back with a big hit and be in the spotlight for a few weeks, but then we're onto the next thing.
So maybe i'm missing your points... who cares-- let it be.