Monday, May 13, 2013
Rosenthal: Anthony Rizzo Signing 7-Year, $41 Million Deal
(msn.foxsports.com)
“Peachy keen, jellybean.”
Read More...The Cubs, from the moment they acquired first baseman Anthony Rizzo 16 months ago, viewed him as a significant part of their future.
Now, they can guarantee it long-term.
The Cubs have reached agreement with Rizzo on a seven-year, $41 million contract through 2019, according to major-league sources. The deal also includes two $14.5 million club options, sources said.
Thus, the total value over nine years could be $68 million; Rizzo would not receive a $2 million ...
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Page 3 of 42 pages
< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 > Last ›He should have quietly but firmly disagreed and explained his disagreement, if only to make it known that these attitudes are not universally accepted. I remember doing this 20 years ago in a more backwards part of Canada before gay rights were accepted. Giving a simple explanation of why gay pride parades exist and not hetero pride parades. Giving a simple argument for gay marriage. All, without a disclaimer that you are not gay. It should not matter who gives the argument - the argument for respect is the same. I like to think that I at least made people think about the issues...
We don't know that Schilling didn't do this but we do know he *is* doing the right thing now which is more than a lot of other ex-athletes and I give him full credit for it...
You're having an interesting night.
A lot of it is definitional, but a lot of that involves intentional manipulation of definitions rather than mere error. I was working through one facet of the rape issue with a woman statistician. It seemed like we were the only two interested in accuracy. We kept coming across statistics for rape--even from the CDC--that started out as the numbers for rape, then quickly and rather covertly became the numbers for rape, attempted rape, and sexual assault, the latter of which in some instances included catcalling. In another instance the FBI changed its definition of rape in 2012 in a way that would significantly increase its apparent incidence; many of its reports on the subject omitted that fact.
I suppose if the purpose is to scare the crap out of women, that'll work, but if the point of the exercise is accuracy so as to better allocate resources towards prevention, then it's failing badly.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/09/wade-davis-on-nfl-players-who-live-semi-open-gay-lives.html
I was just involved in a professional capacity in a three-month long study with a number of groups, trying rather desperately to untangle numbers in a situation that stinks with politics in every direction. It's been on my mind a lot. You know (well, you would if you worked), the way things do when you're involved with them, and seem to be suddenly related to many of the things you come across during your day.
"Forcing discussion"? "Every" topic? Grow up, boy.
Incidentally, I've been in coed dressing areas before and refrained from looking at the other people while they were in states of disrobe / managed to avoid sexualizing them; it's part of showing people a base level of respect. Does that seem unrealistic?
Another peculiar thing about you is that whenever somebody points out your peculiar behavior, you accuse them of being a stalker.
It seems very realistic, but I suspect in most cases it's like everything else, where the rules evolve to limit the damage that, say 5% of the population will do. It's the marginal types, who'd take advantage of the situation, that have to be addressed and constrained in these situations.
@109: ah, an appearance from life's little heckler. Yes, where in your case following me around from thread to thread, where you'd otherwise never post, is a perfectly natural act. Depart, turd of no substance.
The Untangler! Now in Mystery Men II - The Untangling of Ms. Marvel.
I posted in some other such thread that an open-closet situation must exist on many pro sports teams, and Davis confirms that. Indeed, I know of examples second-hand, and no, I'm not going to out the players in question. Unless an open-closeted individual is making an absolute homophobic nuisance of him/herself, the "fraternity" ethic that Davis discusses, as well as basic decency, very strongly militate against it. Hence Schilling, here, absolutely does not tell you who his gay teammates are. Why would he?
Even when someone is being at least a mildly homophobic nuisance, people are very reluctant to out them. Larry Kramer and Tony Kushner outed Ed Koch repeatedly, but even after his recent death, even the NY Post obituary simply calls him a "lifelong bachelor" and quotes Koch's own opinion that his sexuality was none of anybody's business. This ethos is partly old-fashioned and partly newly sensitive, but it's a pretty good thing.
Hence, the opinion expressed by some when I talked about open closets before – that surely in this day and age, a gay ballplayer couldn't "hide" his sexuality – is just incorrect. See this post by Richard Socarides in the New Yorker, on Koch: the man is long-retired and now dead, certainly very famous and most likely very gay, and yet Socarides couches Koch's sexuality as "if." There's just no story, still less any honor, in aggressively outing anyone.
EDIT: Weird, the URL in the post link says Koch dead at 75. He was of course 88. I reckon the Post has been looking forward to this day for quite a while …
Since we're on a "gay players in the NFL" tangent, it seems Kwame Harris is being charged with assaulting his ex-boyfriend...
I'm honored.
Coming from a guy like you whose longest posts run about a paragraph, which in turn is reflective of your extremely limited ability to generate and sustain thought? Heckling really is all you've got.
Stupid, limited, unengaged, and unemployed is no way to go through life, Lassus.
What about Kwame Harris? Isn't he a coward for not exposing himself during his career to provide a forceful advocacy for the abilities and rights of gay football players*
* Note to Kwame, I phrased that as a question. I'm not calling you a coward, I'm just calling out the cowards on this site for making posts that logically prove they think you are a coward. I think you are an enormously great guy. Please don't beat me.
Yeah, this really must be the case. If you're with a group of guys for six, seven, eight months, sharing a locker room, small talking twelve to fourteen hours a day... you know who's genuinely interested in women and who isn't; who's dating, whom they're dating; and who goes quietly out the side door when a half dozen of you are going to meet up with your hetero dates at a local watering hole.
There are going to be guys who go to great lengths to hide their homosexuality, and guys who don't bother to hide it but don't come out, and it's understood and not really discussed, at least not openly. I've been in a number of work situation where that's the case. I'm guessing a lot of us have. Well, not Lassus, who sits at home and collects unemployment and shouts one-liners at his computer screen while the rest of us work, but most people.
Don't flatter yourself, you aren't that interesting.
Creepy, yes. Interesting, no.
It's one thing to point something out; I've probably gotten a little obsessive about a really important subject. It can be useful to know if I refer to it too often, though it's hard to imagine it's all that distracting on a web site with dozens of conversations going on. But why start with the insult? I wasn't addressing you. I don't have a history with you (that I know of).
Oh, and you should be so uninteresting.
And denying that a great portion of your off-topic posts focus on false rape accusations and the victimhood of men really shows that if you can't trust a guy who touts frequently dating women two to three decades younger than himself to comment objectively on sexual poltics, really, who can you trust? Morty, I guess?
I didn't out the lady at my kid's daycare who thought her life would get very difficult (including possible loss of job) if people knew about her orientation - or the somewhat well known singer who thought he might lose sales if people found out about his. If you want to support people, making their life harder isn't normally the way to do it.
Well R. Kelly fans are devoted and willing to accept many things but being gay isn't one of them.
I can't speak for the gay community, but they might just reject the offer right about now. Arod? No, that's OK. You straight folks can keep him.
I think just the two on the first page were critical, for reasons that remain elusive.
Which is why accusing me of being stalkery is hilarious.
I always say that when Rush Limbaugh finally comes out of the closet, nobody is going to be happy about it.
Congratulations on being a lying scumbag.
If you'd like to actually show a pattern where I talk about your delusional "victimhood of men" (project much, you freeloading loser?), feel free. Otherwise, shut the fuck up, you libelous, empty little scumbag.
As for "frequently"? You misspelled once or twice. Really, your pathetic resentments of people whose lives are better than yours is a constant theme of your posts. Get a life, chump.
.
Which is why your gratuitous insult was particularly grating, and pointless.
The measure of your cowardly shot is that you wouldn't have said it at all like that if we were hanging with a bunch of people in the neighborhood bar, and someone mentioning something they had just been doing a lot of work on, for all of the third time in a week, would hardly be a call for your giving offense.
Did it make you feel better, though? That's the important thing.
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I'm critical of Curt because he is an overly opinionated person who never had the guts to go on record with his opinion back when it could have actually cost him something or could have done some good.
I think it's clear that, if so inclined, Schilling could have spoken up without remotely dragging anyone else into it. He could have spoken up, referring to general principles, and shut down immediately any inquiries into whether he was speaking about anyone specifically.
Still, expecting anyone to take a moral stance is... unreasonable. It's not really what people do, even when it costs them little or nothing. They're much better at taking cowardly shots while hiding behind pseudonyms, saying things they'd never have the stones to say during a meet-up, for example.
I could not find the post for the exact wording, and taking your word for the correction I will absolutely apologize for my false misstatement. I should have thought better of it, and I'm sorry.
Also probably shouldn't have said "great portion", as that's not really accurate as far as a percentage, and was stupid given how frequently you do post. I'll get back to you with a better term.
Really, your pathetic resentments of people whose lives are better than yours is a constant theme of your posts.
Er, what?
I generally agree, with one significant exception. A gay politician who involves himself in crafting anti-gay government policy deserves to have his hypocrisy and elitism exposed for all to see. Same goes for high-profile anti-gay preachers.
I don't know if this is a shot at me or some other people you have met but the one time I met fellow primates I held the same stances I've held here.
I don't think it is unreasonable. I think you can say that you shouldn't expect it but it is quite reasonable to want people to stand by their principles in good times and in bad.
Not a shot at you at all. Apparently I have a problem with a couple of people on this thread that I didn't know about, but I don't recall having an issue with you, either here, or elsewhere. You always seemed to me to be a straightforward guy.
I wish this was the case, but I'm currently watching a friend die because she's been cheated of money and care, and the half dozen friends and family who know the situation and can attest to it (which would give her leverage to try to change things), on the order of signing a simple statement and possibly taking an afternoon or less to affirm that in a nearby court, don't want to because they don't want to get involved, or because it's inconvenient, or because they might get into some nebulous 'trouble'.
It's very reasonable to want people to stand by their principles, but it's unreasonable to think they'll do it.
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With respect to politicians, it's toxic because this "exception" is inevitably, ALWAYS used as a fig-leaf excuse solely to out Republicans and conservatives. The logic is always "oh, merely by being a member of the Republican party, or a conservative, you're anti-gay." Which brings up the larger point that once you open the door to an "exception for anti-gay government policy" you then introduce a rather subjective question of what it means for a policy to be anti-gay or not. And that's the sort of exercise in defining terms that (as we see in modern political discourse) is guaranteed to be abused.
With respect to "anti-gay preachers," it's even more ridiculous. Um...you might not like this, but homosexuality is explicitly listed as a sin in the Bible. It's a part of Christian dogma. Now that's a problem Christianity is gonna have to deal with given shifting cultural standards, but if you're a preacher you have to preach what's in the New Testament, and the New Testament doesn't mince words in labelling homosexual behavior a sin. (I suppose we can all make an exception for the Westboro Baptist Church people...)
In this case a blanket rule is the only thing that makes sense: nobody has the right to out anyone else, for ANY reason whatsoever. There's no "discretionary" element to it, no exception for "hypocrisy." Because once you've decided that someone is your "enemy," well then it's amazing just how easy it is to discover "hypocrisy" in your opponent's behavior.
Completely disagree. A closeted gay politician who participates in legislation that makes life more difficult for non-elite gay people doesn't deserve ANY deference at all. I don't care what his party is (if they're disproportionately conservatives, well, that's conservatism's problem); he's going out of his way to cause harm to gay people and make their lives more difficult, while he, himself, gets to indulge in all the consequence-free gay sex he condemns in others. We're (theoretically) not a monarchy where the nobles get to live by different rules than the rest of us; therefore, this kind of duplicity should never be tolerated in a democratic society. They deserve to be outed.
This seems like a straw man. What if it's only when the pol in question is, regardless of party, outed after promoting anti-gay legislation, or indulging in anti-gay speech? Bigotry is not benign. Exposing hypocrisy, which in these cases is obviously what's happening, is a powerful weapon in the fight for equality. It seems pointless to forgo it. I would expect the reverse, as well; a pol pocketing LGBA dollars while quietly giving anti-gay speeches to key constituencies to be sure they don't think he's going to go 'too far' deserves exposure for such.
In any case, very, very few Dem pols are currently pushing anti-gay anything; hence the mere appearance of anti-GOP bias. If only one party is doing this, then only one party is going to have members outed for discrimination.
I think my main problem with your stance is that it assumes bad faith. I don't think much of people, but I'm not going to make that assumption here.
edit: or what Tony said in 140, better than I did.
I've written here at length on the passages in Paul which are considered to condemn homosexuality. (Posts 122 and 126 in this thread). Several of the proof texts for the biblical condemnation of homosexuality are based on misreadings of the Greek. The key passage, Romans 1, only condemns homosexuality based on a presumption of male superiority and a radical male/female sexual hierarchy. Most Christians do not see such a radical sexual hierarchy as a central part of the message of the New Testament, and few people want to condemn male "effeminacy" as a sin equal to adultery or theft. We need to interpret, we need to make critical decisions, we need to read. No text, certainly no honored religious text, is so dumbly simple that you can just preach "what's in it" without doing the hard, day-to-day work of interpretation.
Note: I am neither Catholic nor anti-gay. I don't have a dog in this particular race.
Of course I am, as I should. A moral principle of behavior worth its salt has to be posited on the assumption of bad faith actors, and crafted to respond to them. A strict "leave people's private lives alone" policy eliminates problems of bad faith altogether by not allowing bad faith actors (of which, and let's be brutally honest about human nature here, there are many) to hide behind an exercise of discretion.
And excludes good faith actors performing reasonable and fair actions in the pursuit of nothing more or less than equality.
It's as if you said, some people abuse alcohol, therefore no one should drink.
@144: Matt is correct. There's no reason to assume your reading of the New Testament is the only reasonable and popular one (as though popularity was indicative of correctness or exactitude), and that Matt is some sort of oddball pushing an esoteric reading. He's not. A careful reading of this and the earlier thread shows a top-notch, scholarly approach.
In any case, it seems a little too much like we're in 1985, and you're telling Bill James that because few agree with him, he must be wrong. It's the validity of the interpretation that matters here, not how many votes it gets.
I don't know what I think of all this myself. But to some extent, the various outings of Ed Koch, in the day, used to smack of the Left's notorious tendency to engage in circular firing squads. Weak as Koch may have been on gay rights at times, he was a heck of a lot better than a conservative Republican might have been, not only on gay rights but on a ton of other issues that his outers were interested in.
Now if anyone wants to discuss Indo-European language cladistics, or the reconstructed history of the early Roman Republic (i.e. the REAL story, not Livy's account)...game on, motherf**kers.I do want to point that this, however, isn't really correct. If we were arguing about questions of objective fact (e.g. "Does the sun revolve around the earth or vice-versa?" "Are bunts generally speaking a smart use of an out?") then your point would stand, but aside from the question of proper translation and textual interpretation you are also dealing with an accumulated cultural OPINION that isn't subject to objective, instant nullification merely by conclusively demonstrating a mistranslation.
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